Buddhist Morality and Ethics

Buddhist morality is Medieval
Traditional Buddhist morality developed in feudal

theocratic cultures. Mostly, it is typical for such
societies: similar to what you’d find in Medieval
Europe or the nastier parts of the contemporary
Islamic world. It is crude, arbitrary, patriarchal, and
often cruel.
In Europe, Enlightenment rationalism enabled smart
people to say “wait, that’s nasty and stupid.”
Christian morality gradually became less barbarous,
and evolved into secular ethics.
Buddhist modernizers replaced traditional morality
with Victorian Christian morality in the late 1800s,
and with leftish secular morality in the the 1980s.
(The two pages after this one discuss that.) The
result is that modern “Buddhist ethics” has no
similarity to traditional Buddhist morality, much of
which would horrify Western Buddhists.
You’d find, for most current hot-button Western

moral conflicts, that traditional Buddhism has
nothing to say, or comes down on the side of
Western conservatives, or advocates positions so
regressive that even no conservative would agree.
Damien Keown, in “Buddhist ethics: a critique,”1
writes:
Buddhism is depicted as holding ‘enlightened’ views
on any number of contemporary issues, when these
have hardly been mentioned in traditional sources, or
the evidence is ambiguous or even points in the
opposite direction. Thus Buddhism is depicted as
eco-friendly, a defender of individual rights, strongly
anti-war, ‘pro-choice’ and tolerant of same-sex
relationships, in a manner that coincides neatly with
modern and liberal agendas. This anachronistic
construction of Buddhism seems to owe as much to
the rejection of certain traditional Western values as
it does to the views of Buddhism itself. If Buddhism
is the ‘good guy,’ it is not hard to image who the
‘bad guy’ is. The blame for many of today’s
problems is often laid at the door of Christianity,
which is charged with being destructive of the
environment, conservative, authoritarian, repressive,
sexist, and stained in the blood of countless wars.
However, the Buddhist position is much less clear
and coherent on many issues than is commonly
supposed. I will illustrate the nature of the problem
with three examples: ecology, human rights, and
war. These are all issues on which Buddhism is
widely perceived as being on the side of the angels,
but the justification for this view in Buddhist
teachings is weaker than might be thought.
I’ll go through two of Keown’s examples briefly,
plus three others: sex, gender, and slavery.2
Sex
Buddhism is extraordinarily anti-sexual. Rejection
of sex is the first and most important aspect of its
central principle, renunciation. Buddhism
recommends complete celibacy for lay people as
well as monastics. Actual Buddhist practice is
completely incompatible with any sexual activity,
and even with the slightest twinge of desire.3
For lay people who insist on having sex anyway,
Buddhism has long lists of rules prohibiting most
sexual acts. If you follow the rules, you’ll probably
be reborn as a pig, but at least you’ll avoid hell.
Details depend on the tradition, but commonly
verboten are solo and partner masturbation, oral and
anal sex, sex between men, sex during daytime, and
sex with a woman who is pregnant or nursing.
Abortion is murder, and sends you straight to hell.
On the other hand, polygamy is taken for granted,
and married men having sex with prostitutes is
explicitly OK according to some (not all) major
traditions.4 Overall, and in other respects too,
Buddhist morality is patriarchal, sexist, and cis-
sexist.5
José Cabezón’s “Rethinking Buddhism and Sex”
was one of my inspirations for writing this blog
series about Buddhist ethics. He notes that these
facts come as an unwelcome surprise to many
Western Buddhists. A typical first reaction is denial:
“That isn’t what Buddhism says—it wouldn’t be
compassionate—Buddhist ethics says that all sexual
acts are fine between adults in a loving relationship.”
When confronted with authoritative texts, they may
switch to “That is a later overlay from a conservative
culture, not the radical true original Buddhism”; then
eventually “well, I guess Buddha got that minor
point wrong, so we’ve fixed it.” This reflects a total
failure to understand the essential role of
renunciation in Buddhist practice.
I have often asked myself why my co-religionists are
so willing, and indeed keen, to adopt the minute
meditation instructions of the classical masters, and
so quick to slough off the advice of these same
masters when it comes to matters of sex.
Be that as it may, I have come to see a fundamental
disconnect between what the classical Buddhist
tradition has to say about sexuality and what
Western Buddhists believe about the subject. I
realized that much of the background and many of
the ideas I was taking for granted were either
unknown to my audience or were summarily
rejected as “un-Buddhist.”
Cabezón argues that we should
1. know, understand, and reflect on what Buddhism
actually says about sex
2. analyze it using Western ethical principles of
rationality, justice, and equality—all concepts
which are unknown in traditional Buddhist
morality
3. reject Buddhist sexual morality on that basis.
Gender equality
Peter Harvey’s Introduction to Buddhist Ethics
devotes an entire chapter, 56 pages long, to “Sexual
Equality.” This simply does not exist in Buddhism.
Harvey really, really wants it to exist, but in the end
he doesn’t say it does, because it doesn’t. Most of
the chapter shows instead that women are inferior
according to virtually all Buddhist texts and cultural
traditions. On the positive side, he points out that:
1. Women were better off under Buddhism than
some other religions [true, but that does not
make them equal to men]
2. Women could become nuns, so they were not
excluded from religious practice [but nuns are
explicitly inferior to monks, according to vinaya
and in cultural practice]
3. Some scriptures say the best female Buddhists
are better than some male Buddhists [not a
statement of equality of the sexes]
4. Various women attained enlightenment,
according to scriptures [but in each case this is
described as peculiar, and in most cases as
incomplete]
5. It’s partly the fault of other, patriarchal religions
being mixed in [irrelevant because the
“original, pure” Buddhism did not teach
equality]
The best case for gender equality in Buddhism may
be in some “mother lineage” tantras, which say that
women have greater potential for certain religious
practices. As far as we know, this never translated
into social equality. However, women were closer to
equality in Tibet than perhaps any other pre-modern
civilization, and this may have been due to tantric
influence.
Human rights
Buddhist societies had codes of laws in which
particular categories of people had particular rights.
However, there was no idea of human rights—ones
all humans have, simply for being human.
Human rights is a Western concept that was
unknown in Asia until modern times, and to make
this relevant to Buddhism it appears that some
intellectual bridgework needs to be put into place.
However, it is far from clear how this is to be done.
(Keown, p. 222.)
In other words, can we invent some theory of human
rights that connects with Buddhism in some way?
Western theories of human rights claim to ground
them in “human dignity” (although no one has a
coherent explanation of what that means). However,
as Keown notes (p. 223), “the very words ‘human
dignity’ sound as alien in a Buddhist context as talk
of rights.”
A popular contemporary “Buddhist ethics” approach
is to try to ground human rights in compassion.
Keown analyzes this at some length, pointing out
that this fails for the same reasons compassion fails
as a basis for any ethics. (I’ve explained some of
those earlier, and will go into further detail in later
posts.)
Keown suggests that it may be possible to argue that
a notion of human dignity appears in embryonic
form in the tathagatagarbha doctrine, which might be
brought to term as an infant Buddhist justification
for justice, rights, and equality. He admits that this is
handwavey. I find it unlikely, and in any case I think
the tathagatagarbha theory is itself incoherent and
absurd.
He concludes (p. 225):
Leading Buddhists, meanwhile, continue to use
human rights language on a daily basis, although I
think many would find it a challenge to provide a
convincing justification in terms of Buddhist
doctrine.
Slavery
The most fundamental human right is to not be
enslaved.6
• Slavery is explicitly approved in many Buddhist
scriptures.
• “There is almost no indication in any premodern
Buddhist source, scriptural or documentary, of
opposition to, or reluctance to participate in,
institutions of slavery.”7
• According to scripture, the Buddha himself
(after enlightenment) accepted slaves as gifts to
the sangha, and he did not free them.
• Slavery was normal in most or all Buddhist
cultures, throughout pre-modern history.
• In most or all Buddhist cultures, monasteries
routinely owned slaves.
• In some Buddhist cultures, individual monks
routinely owned slaves.8
• In some Buddhist cultures, most so-called
“monks” were actually slaves themselves.
Really, that’s all you need to know. If you want
more, there are good short summaries in the
Encyclopedia of Buddhism; the articles “Buddhism”
and “Asian/Buddhist monastic slavery” in the
Historical Encyclopedia of World Slavery; and
Michael Jerryson’s “Buddhism and Antislavery.”
There is a longer discussion in the chapter “The
Monastic Ownership of Servants or Slaves” in
Gregory Schopen’s Buddhist Monks and Business
Matters. Beyond that, you can find details with
Google.
Not surprisingly, many modern Buddhists want to
deny the facts. When that fails, they want to find
excuses. This prevarication deserves contempt.
Discussion of slavery in Buddhism is made
complicated by arguments about definitions. Various
words in the languages of Buddhism correspond to
“slave,” but are also sometimes translated “servant”
or “serf.” The precise legal status of these people
varied, is often unclear from the texts, and was
usually not exactly the same as that of any category
in Europe. There is also no clear modern legal
definition of slavery. There are gray areas, and it is
surprisingly difficult to draw a line between slavery
and employment. The term is also contested because
some people want to expand “slavery” to include
other things they don’t like (e.g. voluntary
prostitution, or even most employment, as “wage
slavery“). Some other people want to exclude from
the definition things they do themselves (e.g. forcing
people into unpaid labor, but without de jure sale
rights for the de facto slave-owner).
Each of the contested Buddhist categories involves
lifetime involuntary labor, for the economic benefit
of, and under the command of, another person. This
would be illegal in all modern countries. “Servant”
implies voluntary employment for a limited term, so
I believe “slave” is the correct translation.
There are passages in the Pali Canon in which the
Buddha forbids individual monks from accepting
gifts of slaves or other livestock. In discussions of
right livelihood, the Buddha forbids the buying and
selling of slaves among other livestock. These are
cited by people who want to believe that Buddhism
prohibits slavery.
There are, however, also scriptural passages in
which the Buddha says monasteries (as institutions)
must accept gifts of slaves (among other livestock).9
And, there are no prohibitions on laypeople owning
slaves, only on trading them. (Giving them as gifts is
explicitly OK, too.) And finally, any limit on trade in
humans that treats them identically with cattle is
hardly a stirring endorsement of human dignity.
Slavery in Tibet has received special attention due to
a propaganda war between the Chinese government
(and its Western sympathizers) and the Tibetan
government-in-exile (and its Western sympathizers).
Most Tibetans were slaves according to any
reasonable definition. Chinese government
propaganda uses that to try to legitimize their
invasion of Tibet as a “liberation.”10 From the other
side, we behold the bizarre spectacle of liberal
American Buddhist intellectuals defending Tibetan
slavery:
• They weren’t really slaves, because their legal
status wasn’t exactly the same as black slaves in
America; most of them had some rights.
• If they didn’t like being slaves, they surely could
have just run away, so either they weren’t really
slaves, or else they liked it, so it was OK.
• It wouldn’t have been in the slave owners’
economic interest to mistreat their slaves,
therefore they didn’t, so slavery was OK.
• Some Tibetan slaves were much better off than
others, almost as rich as free people, which
proves it wasn’t slavery.
• Slavery in other countries was worse, so
Buddhism is a highly ethical religion.
• They were all happy and singing as they worked
the fields because they had Buddhism.
In Tibet, the majority were serfs, which means
agricultural slaves.11 The argument that they were
“not really slaves” is that they could not be sold
individually, but only along with a plot of land.
(Apparently that’s much more moral.)
In addition, there were many non-resellable house-
slaves,12 and some freely-sellable slaves. Most so-
called “monks” were also slaves who did no
religious practice, but were forced into unpaid
agricultural, menial, and manufacturing work for the
benefit of the owners of the monastery. (Lay people
could own monasteries and run them for personal
profit.)
War
Early Buddhist texts condemn all violence.
However, nearly everyone nowadays would agree
that it is right to use violence to stop a political
extremist in the act of shooting dozens of children in
a school. It would be ethically wrong to stand
around saying “violence is bad, so unfortunately we
can’t do anything.” Mahayana Buddhism came to
recognize this principle. (I wrote about this in detail
in “Buddhists who kill.”)
By extension, most people now agree that fighting a
defensive war to protect civilians from slaughter is
ethically justifiable; and may consider it ethically
necessary. (The Rwanda and Bosnia massacres
changed many minds about this.) Some Buddhist
texts agree.
In practice, Buddhist authorities have
enthusiastically supported many wars, including
purely aggressive land-grabs, throughout history.
They have used specifically Buddhist moral
arguments to justify these. Large monasteries
maintained standing armies, and sometimes went to
war with each other, secular powers, or foreigners.
Monks have routinely exerted political pressure on
secular authorities to go to war.13 This continues to
the present. Notable recent examples include support
by Buddhist religious leaders for twentieth-century
Japanese aggression against China and America, the
near-genocidal Sri Lankan war against its Hindu
minority, and the current violent, escalating Burmese
repression of its Muslim minority.
It is easy to say that Buddhist arguments in favor of
offensive wars twist the Dharma; and that is
probably true. However, Keown points out, the
problem is that there is no coherent explanation in
Buddhism for which sorts of wars are moral and
which are immoral. Western ethics developed “just
war theory,” which explains what sorts of wars are
OK, and why. Nothing like that exists in Buddhism.
14
“No ethical value” is relative

As Medieval morality goes, traditional Buddhism is
surprisingly good. Many of its moral positions are
correct. It is definitely less bad than the Aztec
religion, and perhaps less bad than any other
traditional religion. Despite failings, it was a clear
improvement on what went before it, and probably
overall superior to any alternative available in Asia
before modernity. There are still many places in the
world that would be better off with traditional
Buddhist morality than what they have now.
But the Aztecs and Saudi Arabia aren’t the standard
of comparison. The relevant question is whether
Buddhism has anything to offer the contemporary
West. I can’t find anything.
We are plainly far better off with our contemporary
secular ethics than with traditional Buddhist
morality. And, I will argue in later posts, we can also
do much better than modern “Buddhist ethics.”
1. pp. 215-231 in Buddhism in the Modern World.

Lightly edited for concision.
2. I had planned to do torture as well, but decided,
due to my bodhisattvic compassion for my
readers, to spare you the “yay torture!”
arguments. I’ll skip Keown’s discussion of eco-
correctness, which I find less striking than his
other examples. Traditional Buddhism is not
pro-environment (despite what Western
Buddhists would like to believe), but it’s not
particularly anti-environment either.
3. Tantric Buddhism is the exception, obviously.
4. Since owning slaves is also explicitly OK, it
would seem logical that owning slaves for
sexual use is also OK. So far, the only
discussions of this I have found are in Chinese
anti-Tibetan propaganda, which may not be
factual.
5. Some categories of sexual non-conformists are
explicitly discriminated against. It’s not entirely
clear what the ancient words mean, but they
seem to cover intersex and trans people, and
probably also gay men.
6. Freedom from slavery is the first specific right
discussed in the United Nations’ Universal
Declaration of Human Rights. The right not to
be tortured is the second. I am not going to
discuss Buddhism’s position on torture; it’s too
depressing.
7. Encyclopedia of Buddhism.
8. “There is copious inscriptional and documentary
evidence for the institutional monastic
ownership of slaves from Sri Lanka, Cambodia,
Burma, Thailand, Korea, China, and Japan;
Central Asian documents frequently refer to
slaves privately owned by individual monks.”
Encyclopedia of Buddhism. Although many
scriptures say that individual monks cannot own
personal property, others explicitly endorse and
ennumerate monks’ individual property rights.
In many Buddhist cultures, throughout history,
some monks became rich as individuals.
9. “In Buddhist literature of all varieties, stock
descriptions of wealth, even that gifted to the
Buddha, regularly include both male and female
slaves along with silver, gold, fields, livestock,
and so on. Some texts, emphasizing the moral
obligation to receive whatever is given in
reverence, declare that it is an offense not to
accept such offerings, the lists of which
regularly include slaves.” Encyclopedia of
Buddhism.
10. This is codswallop. The Chinese invasion of
Tibet was not motivated by concern for the
plight of the peasants. The subsequent Chinese
administration of Tibet has not been primarily
for the benefit of Tibetans. The average Tibetan
is better off now than in 1959, but that’s not the
correct standard of comparison. Is the average
Tibetan be better off now than if a sovereign
Tibet had modernized with benevolent
assistance from China and other countries? This
is an unknowable hypthetical, but in my opinion,
probably not. Meanwhile the so-called “Tibetan
Government in Exile” produces its own deceitful
propaganda, whitewashing pre-1959 feudal
Tibetan society, which many Western Buddhists
accept uncritically. A plague on both their
houses!
11. The Tibetan word is mi ser. Apologists for
Tibetan slavery argue that “serf” is an inaccurate
translation because there were minor technical
differences between the legal status of the mi ser
and European serfs. Some also argue that
serfdom is “not as bad” as slavery, implying it
was OK. Serfdom is illegal under international
law concerning slavery, however, and “not as
bad” does not mean “morally acceptable.”
12. Apologists say these were “hereditary
servants,” which apparently makes it OK.
13. Buddhist Warfare is an extensive history;
see also the chapter on war in An Introduction to
Buddhist Ethics.
14. “Compassion” is sometimes trotted out as
the criterion, but Keown points out that (as
always) it is useless: exactly that is always
employed as the justification for plainly immoral
wars. Whose compassion, for whom, counts?
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Related
"Buddhist ethics" is a fraud
“Buddhist ethics” is neither Buddhist nor ethics.
“Buddhist ethics” is a fraud: a fabrication created to
deceive, passed off as something valuable that it is
not, for the benefit of its creators and promoters.
“Buddhist ethics” is actually a collection of self-
aggrandizing strategies for gaining social status
within the left…
In "Consensus Buddhism"
How Asian Buddhism imported Western ethics
Modern "Buddhist ethics" is indistinguishable from
current secular ethics and has nothing to do with
traditional Buddhist morality. So, where did it come
from, and why? The short answer is that Buddhist
modernizers simply replaced traditional Buddhist
morality with whatever was the most prestigious
Western ethical system at the time.…
Traditional Buddhism has no ethical system
On this page and the next, I will argue that
traditional Buddhism has no ethical value for liberal,
educated Westerners. There is no "ancient wisdom
of the Buddha" to draw on when constructing a
modern Buddhist ethics. That is why modern
"Buddhist ethics" has nothing in common with the
tradition.…
Author: David Chapman

Author of the book Meaningness and several
Buddhist sites. View all posts by David Chapman
Author David ChapmanPosted on September 26,
2015Categories Consensus BuddhismTags
Buddhism, ethics, human rights, sex, slavery, war
33 thoughts on “Buddhist morality
is Medieval”
1. John Willemsens says:
September 26, 2015 at 12:00 pm
Reblogged this on Advayavada Buddhism.

2. Malaclypse says:
Buddhism theoretically (then and now) doesn’t

need an explicit ethical system, or code of
morality. Each yana has an ethos of its own (I
believe you would call that principle), as well as
a pragmatic expression (function), which in turn
finds explicit expression in particular cultural or
situational circumstances. This didn’t stop many
throughout history and geography to claim their
favorite ethics or moral scruples to be “Buddhist
ethics”, not recognizing they are reducing some
Buddhist notion to a culturally conditioned set of
values, whether it’s tribalism, nationalism or,
these days, modernist and postmodernist
obsessions. On the other hand, the argument of
“training rules” may have several dimensions.
The intention behind specific injunctions is not
just to train a set of behaviors that reduces in-
group and social friction (as with many vinaya
rules) thus creating favourable conditions for
some forms of practice, or to establish basics of
propriety and decency that facilitate character
building (as with shila) – these, as you rightly
point out, belong to fairly basic stages in moral
development as proposed by contemporary
researchers (to say children outgrow such levels
of morality is a bit simplistic, since it’s a
complex matter, parts of personality being on
various levels, and the whole personal system
can significantly shift with circumstances,
envirnoment, and various states of mind and
body). The intention is also be to spur awareness
of volitional dynamics by frustrating or
counteracting particular knots in the system.
And this goes back to ethos. When it comes to
espoused ethical formulations and moral
principles of right and wrong, mainstream
Buddhism was and remains fairly adaptive, its
institutions mirroring the prevailing social
circumstances and cultural conventions (even if
only those limited to the group of those who
self-identify as Buddhists). The ethics and
morality of those few who practiced deep
awareness and radical compassion have often
been at odds with such mainstream Buddhism,
as evidenced in their criticism of what was then
mainstream Buddhism (same now with our
contemporaries). Comparing traditional scripture
(a product of manifold influences) with modern
apologetics, and sifting the results with critical
historiography, is a good method of delineating
Buddhist identity politics. Thanks for your good
work:)
3. nannus says:
September 27, 2015 at 3:52 am
To what degree are the moral rules of traditional

Buddhist societies actualy derived from
Buddhist teachings? Coming from a culture that,
in its pre-modern state, had a moral theology in
which moral was a corollary of religion, we
might think of religion and moral/ethics as
belonging together but I think in many pre-
modern societies (as in modern society as well)
they are not. There is, of course, some
arbitrariness in the way phenomena in a society
are delimited. You will in most cases be able to
find something that can be called a religion and
something that may be called moral or ethics. It
is then always possible to lump the two together,
but I think this has to be justified. If a culture
does not actually derive its moral rules from its
religious belief system (and that is a problematic
concept as well) I think one should not connect
the two. In traditional Christianity, there
definitely was a connection. In Judaism there are
God-given laws plus all of the Talmudic
literature that has grown around them, in Islam it
is hard to separate the religion from the Sharia
law system (which poses a problem for Muslims
who want to adopt a less archaic kind of ethics),
but in many cultures, the two areas (ethics/
moral/laws on one side, religious beliefs and cult
practices on the other) are more or less separate.
I do not know very much about Buddhism, so let
me ask the question: how is the connection in
Buddhist societies: is there an intrinsic
connection between those aspects of those
cultures that could be called “religion” (if the
term makes any sense here) and those that can
be called moral, ethics or traditional law. Do the
moral systems derive from the religious
teachings (or, in case they are historically older,
which they probably are, are they at least
justified on the basis of the religious teachings,
or are these separate or separable aspects of
these cultures?
4. David Chapman says:

nannus & Malaclypse — your thoughtful

comments both raise the question “is there any
strong connection between religion and ethics/
morality” and suggest the answer is “no.” I
agree. My view is that traditional Buddhism
never had much to say about ethics/morality—it
didn’t consider that part of its remit—which is
one reason among several that “Buddhist ethics”
is a non-thing.
However, my next post will explain that
Buddhism was reinvented as being nothing other
than a system of ethics during the Victorian
period. And modern Consensus Buddhism is
based mainly on that Victorian reinvention. So it
claims that ethics is half of Buddhism (the other
half being meditation).
5. Pobop says:
Well, there was something like “just war” in

japanese buddhism before the second world war.
Though you probably refer to traditional
buddhism. This japanese buddhist development
had all kinds of messy ties to state shinto and re-
interpreted bushido, was probably borrowed
from westeners, and mainly conceived to justify
attacking the chinese, so I guess this just proves
your point. And indeed it was framed as
compassion. It’s a good example of how not to
do intentionalist ethics.
Chapter 8 of Zen at war (p.93), Brian Victoria
quotes Soto Zen master Hata Esho:
“Buddha Shakyamuni, during his religious
practice in a former life, participated in a just
war. Due to the merit he acquired a result, he
was able to appear in this world as a Buddha.
Thus, it can be said that a just war is one task of
Buddhism.”
Other than that, in many places in this article
you say there’s a lot of scriptural support for x
and y, it would be really handy if you could
mention a few representative samples.
6. fripsidelover9110 says:
“commonly verboten are solo and partner
masturbation, oral and anal sex, sex between
men, sex during daytime, and sex with a woman
who is pregnant or nursing. Abortion is murder,
and sends you straight to hell. On the other hand,
polygamy is taken for granted, and”
commonly? Are you talking about precepts for
Buddhist monks? probably not since you say
“polygamy is taken for granted.” (unless you are
mixing up the two – precepts for monks and for
lay Buddhist)
Assuming that you are talking about traditional
Asian Buddhism and its precepts for lay
Buddhists, your claim is dubious. I’m
reasonably well versed with South Korean
Buddhist tradition and Buddhism in general
(because I’m a South Korean, and often read
Buddhist literature including modern scholarly
ones), but as far as I know, traditional Korean
Buddhism has not been concerned about specific
code of sex for lay Buddhists. Buddhist monks
may say from time to time “keeping precepts
matters, so no sexual misconduct please- usually
understood as No Extramarital Sex”, but that’s
nearly all. Neither monks nor lay Buddhists talk
about masturbation, oral, anal sex, sex between
men, sex during daytime and sex with a woman
who is pregnant.
Furthermore, many of east Asian Buddhist
countries (Taiwan, China, Vietnam, Japan)
would not be so different from Korea, when it
comes to traditional Buddhist code of Sex for
lay Buddhists.
I’m very curious where you got the idea that
traditional Asian Buddhism ‘commonly’ have
been concerned about details of sexual conduct
of lay Buddhists.
“married men having sex with prostitutes is
traditions”
Which major traditions do you mean?

Are you talking about precepts for Buddhist
monks?
No, this is about rules for laypeople. I’m relying

primarily on Cabezón’s article (linked in mine),
which says everything I said here. While doing
research for this series, I read many other
sources on Buddhist sexual morality, but didn’t
keep as good notes as I should have, so it would
take some work to find other answers.
Cabezón is writing primarily about Tibetan
Buddhism, which is also the type I know most
about. He says that all these same prohibitions
are found in Indian texts, and I assume that’s
right because he’s a reputable scholar, but I
don’t know the specifics.
I’m reasonably sure I’ve read that Theravada has
more-or-less the same teachings, and can
probably find a reference for that if it’s
important.
I know much less about East Asian Buddhism
than about either Tibetan or Theravada. I know
that it’s generally quite different, and I wouldn’t
be surprised at all if the teachings on sexual
morality were different.
“married men having sex with prostitutes is
traditions” — Which major traditions do you
mean?
Certainly in Tibetan Buddhism. This was

explicitly endorsed by the Dalai Lama in 1997.
(To the consternation of some Western
Buddhists.)
The Pali literature is all-around anti-sexual, so
it’s anti-prostitution just because that’s sex.
However, in various places there are lists of
categories of women you shouldn’t have sex
with (if you insist on having sex with someone),
and these don’t include prostitutes. The best
discussion seems to be in Steven Collins’s 2007
“Remarks on the Third Precept: Adultery and
Prostitution in Pali Texts,” for which I don’t
have the full text. A summary from the web,
however:
if a woman is not under any specific protection,
neither of the two is at fault for having “an
affair”, such is the case, for example, with a
prostitute, a widow, or a divorced woman.
Several scholarly sources say that the point of

third precept is that sex with unsuitable women
is a transgression against the woman’s owner/
protector (not against the woman). Thus, as long
as you pay the fee, there is no transgression
against the owner/protector of a prostitute, and
so it’s fine.
8. Sabio Lantz says:

Superb and brilliantly informative like the rest of

this series. Thank you so much.
I would be happier if I could locate the Indian

texts that Cabezón relied on, and am doing some
work on that now. In the mean time, two quotes
from Serinity Young’s Courtesans and Tantric
Consorts:
early Buddhism defined laymen as independent
agents who do not break precepts when they
have sex with their wives, prostitutes, or any
woman not defined by her relationship with
another man or under a religious vow.
Buddhism never defined marriage, preferring
instead to accept whatever forms of marriage it
met with as it spread through various Asian
societies, among them monogamy, polyandry,
and polygamy. Nor did it ever condemn
concubinage or prostitution, though as we shall
see, it did condemn individual prostitutes—but
not their clients.
October 6, 2015 at 3:16 am
if a woman is not under any specific protection,

neither of the two is at fault for having “an
affair”, such is the case, for example, with a
prostitute, a widow, or a divorced woman.
Several scholarly sources say that the point of
third precept is that sex with unsuitable women
is a transgression against the woman’s owner/
protector (not against the woman). Thus, as long
as you pay the fee, there is no transgression
against the owner/protector of a prostitute, and
so it’s fine.
==> not against the woman? You seem to imply
that Buddhist tradition was O.K with rape unless
there is no protector or owner of a woman. But
are you sure of it?
You seem to imply that Buddhist tradition was

O.K with rape unless there is no protector or
owner of a woman. But are you sure of it?
I am not sure. I’d be interested to read more

about this. As far as I can remember, nothing I
read involved any concept of female consent,
which would suggest that there was no concept
of rape as that is understood in contemporary
ethics. But I don’t know.

“I am not sure. I’d be interested to read more

about this.”
a Sankrit source of early Buddhist Sutra (Pali
cannon is not the only source of the early
Buddhism as you may know), clearly states that
Rape is BAD.
“Some who have committed sexual
misconduct….. because she has been already
obtained by somebody else and is thus
somebody else’s woman, or having sexual
intercourse with her by overwhelming her. ”
https://suttacentral.net/en/up4.081

Oh, good, thank you very much!
14. neunder says:

October 20, 2015 at 12:19 pm
Could you recommend a book or article for the

Buddhist position on torture?
October 20, 2015 at 1:19 pm
Not specifically, no… while doing the research

for this I did some casual googling, found that
some Buddhist authorities have given Buddhist
arguments to justify torture, but didn’t follow up
beyond that. Torture was advocated specifically
because killing is a Buddhist no-no.
The torture and execution of the liberal Tibetan
politicians Lungshar and Reting during the
power struggle after the 13th Dalai Lama’s death
are interesting cases.
Tsepon Lungshar, an official educated in
England introduced reform in the 1920s; after
losing a political struggle the reformist was
sentenced to be blinded by having his eye-balls
pulled out. “The method involved the placement
of a smooth, round yak’s knucklebone on each
of the temples of the prisoner. These were then
tied by leather thongs around the head and
tightened by turning the thongs with a stick on
top of the head until the eyeballs popped out.
The mutilation was terribly bungled. Only one
eyeball popped out, and eventually the ragyaba
had to cut out the other eyeball with a knife.
Boiling oil was then poured into the sockets to
cauterize the wound.”
The details are not necessarily representative,

but judicial torture and mutilation was standard
and officially condoned by religious authorities
in Tibet for centuries. I believe the same was
generally true elsewhere in the Buddhist world,
but you’d need to do some googling to check.
16. Gabriel says:

November 5, 2015 at 7:21 pm
“The ascetic Gotama is a refrainer from

damaging seeds and crops. He eats once a day
and not at night, refraining from eating at
improper times. [13] He avoids watching
dancing, singing, music and shows. He abstains
from using garlands, perfumes, cosmetics,
ornaments and adornments. He avoids using
high or wide beds. He avoids accepting gold and
silver.
[14] He avoids accepting raw grain or raw flesh,
he does not accept women and young girls, male
or female slaves, sheep and goats, cocks and
pigs, elephants, cattle, horses and mares, fields
and plots, [15] he refrains from running errands,
from buying and selling, from cheating with
false weights and measures, from bribery and
corruption, deception, and insincerity, from
wounding, killing, imprisoning, highway
robbery, and taking food by force.” Thus the
worldling would praise the Tathágata.

I assume that you quoted this passage to suggest
that Buddhism opposes slavery. It does not
support that claim. What it says is that the
Buddha did not accept, as personal gifts,
anything other than the handful of specific types
of gifts that monks are allowed to accept—
mainly, cooked food (vs. “raw grain or raw
flesh”) and cloth suitable for making monastic
robes.
Reputable sources I cited say that there are
passages in scripture in which he said that
monasteries must accept slaves as gifts to the
monastery (as opposed to personal gifts). I have
not located these passages myself. (If anyone
knows of one, please let us know!)

Ah, yes, found some, in the chapter “The

Monastic Ownership of Servants or Slaves” in
Gregory Schopen’s Buddhist Monks and
Business Matters. This has lengthy quotes from
two different vinayas. In each, the Buddha says
that while it is not permissible for an individual
monk to accept a gift of slaves, it is required that
a monastery accept such a gift, as an institution.
The relevant passages are available online, on
Google Books.
19. chris says:

November 9, 2015 at 4:49 am
I don’t doubt this, but could someone post a

reputable source for the Buddha himself
accepting slaves as gifts to the sangha?
Preferably from the original scripture like the
OP says.
Yes, see Schopen’s piece. I’ve found a version

of it as a standalone PDF so you don’t need to
fight Google Books to locate the relevant bit.
There’s lengthy quotes from two different
vinayas. They are somewhat long and
complicated, so I won’t copy them in here.
The lengthiness is important because, in the
course of long meandering stories about other
matters, the two passages clarify the ownership
status of the “servants or slaves” involved.
Schopen’s topic is not slavery as a moral issue,
so he doesn’t discuss that. His interest (in much
other work as well) is monasticism as an
economic institution; so the issue of whether the
slaves are owned by an individual monk or by
the monastery corporately is what he cares
about.
One of the scriptures he quotes is Bhesajja-
khandhaka in the Pali Vinaya, which I’ve linked
at Sutta Central. The other, perhaps stronger,
one is from the Tibetan edition of the
Mulasarvastivadin Vinaya. The translation
doesn’t seem to be online other than in
Schopen’s article.
21. Pingback: Miscellanea November 2015 |

panglott
22. A says:
December 16, 2015 at 5:14 pm
In Thanissaro Bhikku’s translation of the Digha

Nikaya, Discourse 2 Fruits of the Contemplative
Life states:
“He abstains from accepting uncooked grain…
raw meat… women & girls…
male & female slaves… goats & sheep… fowl
& pigs… elephants, cattle, steeds, &
mares… fields & property.”
This is found on page 47 of the edition (dated
150107) currently up on dhammatalks.org and
his translation of the Vinaya says the
Commentaries suggest that monks who did
accept slaves incurred a dukatta. Ok, it sounds
like maybe this was a problem if the
Commentaries centuries later were mentioning
it, but it seems likely that it was not considered
acceptable by the Buddha and the early Sangha
to accept slaves.
One point to add, I think it is important not to
forget that reforming society or its system of
morality/ethics on a large scale was not
something the Buddha was interested in doing
(personally I think he was too smart to even try
and aware that it might destroy the early
community if he too overtly criticized many of
the people who they were LITERALLY
dependent upon to even be able to eat). He was
concerned with helping people find freedom in
Nibanna, not making this world a nicer place to
live. I always remember what Thanissaro
Bhikkhu says, basically that the Buddhists who
practice “the Dhamma in line with the Dhamma”
have always been on the edges of society, and
their values have never been broadly reflective
of any traditionally “Buddhist” culture, ancient
or modern. He has written some interesting
pieces on this issue, including some thought
provoking quotes from Ajahn Mun on this topic.
Very interesting article…Thanks!

it was not considered acceptable by the Buddha

and the early Sangha to accept slaves
Yes; there are many other passages that say the

same. But, as far as I know, all of them (like this
one) suggest that it was unacceptable for an
individual monk to accept slaves because they
are an encumbrance. They don’t say slavery is
morally wrong. In this case, slaves are listed
along with uncooked grain and raw meat. Those
are not immoral. An individual monk should not
accept them because then he’d have to cook
them, and that’s not his job.
reforming society or its system of morality/
ethics on a large scale was not something the
Buddha was interested in
Yes, that’s an important point. As I explained

elsewhere, this was only added to Buddhism in
modernity (and mostly only after 1980).
24. Alex says:

March 13, 2016 at 12:18 pm
I have been reading this series with interest,

though many months behind. I’d like to point
out that while you cite the Schopen article as the
only evidence that the Buddha “himself”
allowed accepting slaves, the article instead
argues the opposite:
“The Mulasarvastivadin account of Pilinda
would at first seem to presuppose permanent
monastic establishments whose repair and
maintenance required a large non-monastic work
force—notice that both it and the Mahaviharin
account concern the gift not of single servants or
bondmen, but large numbers… Such
establishments, to judge by the archeological
record, were not early. It seems, in fact, they
only begin to appear around the beginning of the
Common Era, and even then were probably not
the norm.” (167)
Schopen concludes from his textual analysis of
two vinayas that precisely because of their
references to slavery neither could have been
redacted before the first or second century CE, in
other words the same distance in time from the
establishment of the sangha as the fall of
Constantinople is to us: “But since it also seems
that neither account in either vinaya can be
early, then it would also appear that references
to aramikas and kalpikaras elsewhere in their
respective vinayas also cannot be early” (171).
So it seems curious to argue that “In most or all
Buddhist cultures, monasteries routinely owned
slaves,” which isn’t necessary for the larger
thesis that Buddhism wasn’t addressed to social
issues. Maybe the retort will be that Buddhism is
defined as the historical record of diverse texts
and practices, and so “early Buddhism” is a
construction about which nothing can be known.
At least according to Schopen though, one thing
that can be known about it it couldn’t have had
slaves the way that later communities did.
I look forward to reading more in the series!

March 13, 2016 at 2:13 pm
Alex, thanks for a thoughtful comment!

When I said “In most or all Buddhist cultures,
monasteries routinely owned slaves,” I meant
during periods that are historically well-
documented. Especially, this was true as of the
time Asian Buddhism and Western modernity
first interacted (the 1700s). I think the same was
probably true as far back as there are good
historical records, meaning back to about 650,
but I haven’t looked into that in detail.
“In most or all Buddhist cultures” couldn’t have
referred to the period of the Buddha’s life,
because Buddhism only existed in a small part
of India then.
There is a standard rhetorical move, much used
in Buddhist modernism, which is to excuse each
defect of actually-existing Buddhism by saying
it’s a “later distortion,” and that the “true,
original Buddhism” didn’t have that defect.
Apologists can get away with this because we
don’t know very much (if anything) about
Buddhism in the B.C. era. There are essentially
no historical records, other than the scriptures.
Nearly all Western historians agree that most of
the scriptures are fiction, and not reliable guides
to B.C. Buddhism, but do not agree about which
(if any) are factual.
Schopen is skeptical about the historicity of
early Buddhism—i.e. he doesn’t think many, or
any, surviving texts reflect it accurately. I’m not
knowledgeable enough to have a strong opinion,
but based on my limited knowledge, I tentatively
agree. I provisionally regard all Buddhist
scriptures as fictions.
So, to be precise about what I did and didn’t say
earlier… I wrote:
there are passages in scripture in which [the
Buddha] said that monasteries must accept
slaves as gifts to the monastery
I said that the passages say that the Buddha said

that. I don’t regard the scriptures as factual, so I
didn’t mean that I thought that meant the
Buddha actually said that. (Provisionally, I don’t
think the Buddha actually said anything, because
provisionally I think he’s a purely fictional
character.)
Schopen provides two such passages. Part of his
point is that these vinayas must have been
written centuries after the Buddha supposedly
lived, at a time when conditions were quite
different, and the Buddha couldn’t actually have
said that. I presume he is right about that.
This is irrelevant to the question of what
scripture says. Vinaya is the core part of
scripture, as far as Buddhism was actually
practiced in Asia. Vinaya does say that the
Buddha said that monasteries must accept gifts
of slaves.
So, you wrote:
you cite the Schopen article as the only evidence
that the Buddha “himself” allowed accepting
slaves
But I didn’t say anything about what the Buddha

himself actually said; I only talked about what
scripture said he said. And, I didn’t cite Schopen
for that (although I provided the link so people
could check), I cited the two scriptures
themselves.
I hope that’s all clear now! Let me know if not.
26. Alex says:

March 14, 2016 at 3:05 pm
Hi David. Yes, we certainly can’t read these
texts as factual records. Just the point that
historians and archaeologists maintain that there
were communities for hundreds of years before
the common era that were in some sense
Buddhist, and that they likely couldn’t have held
slaves (this is not a doctrinal but an
archaeological argument), and that the early Sri
Lankan ones didn’t either (Schopen’s reading). I
agree these aren’t more authentic than other
historical and contemporary communities, but I
don’t think they’re less authentic either, and so
reading about them factors in my overall
thinking about Buddhism and slavery. In reading
more through the series I realized that Tibetan
Buddhism is the main reference point for your
discussion, so thus it makes sense that slavery
has to be a central question (touring the Potala
palace gives a sobering view of the wealth
disparity there and the system that enforced it),
and in this context it is relevant to show that it
existed already in CE monasteries in India.
27. Justin says:
April 8, 2016 at 1:34 pm
A few points;
Emphasizing compassion doesn’t seem to me
like an absence of an ethical system, it seems
like a specific kind of ethics, what (I think) is
called virtue ethics. Virtue ethics might not be
very good for designing systems which are fair
or have good outcomes (like say, non slave
owning societies), but that’s not really the point.
There is an important respect in which both
Buddhism and Jainism were ethical revolutions
in their time, which was the rejection of animal
sacrifice, a strong critique of the prevailing
Brahmin religion. As far as I can tell, early
Buddhism in India advocated animal welfare
and vegetarianism which is an area in which
modern, western societies are remarkably
deficient, although there are ethicists trying to
rectify this within the Christian and
enlightenment traditions.
Also, though not true for all Buddhisms, there
were concepts of ‘just war’ and dharmic
kingship. A good place to start might be Iain
Sinclair’s “War Magic and ‘Just War’ in Tantric
Buddhism”.
If you said that Buddhism’s ethics are nasty,
irrational, and hard to swallow for someone
versed in the modern enlightenment tradition,
and that using Buddhist ethics to prop up feel
good, secular progressivism is an ahistorical
fantasy, I agree. But keep in mind that the
Bible’s endorsement of slavery didn’t prevent
many fervent Protestants from working actively
and in some cases being martyred to attain its
abolition.
28. Justin says:

April 8, 2016 at 1:47 pm
I can’t go back and edit my comments, but I
would like to strike the last point on my
previous comment off as unfair. I was only
trying to point out that ethics exist as dynamic
systems that can become unrecognizable over
time; Christian ethics created the basis of
enlightenment ethics and, over time, did
complete 180s on issues like slavery. How that
kind of historical process could be replicated by
modern Buddhist ethicists, I have no idea, but
simply throwing out Buddhist ethics and
replacing them with secular progressivist ones is
not the same as subjecting them to the kind of
historical evolution in Christian ethics that came
about through centuries of scrutiny, discussion,
and, in some cases, extremely violent conflict.

April 9, 2016 at 12:10 pm
Hi Justin, thanks for the comments!

Emphasizing compassion doesn’t seem to me
like an absence of an ethical system, it seems
like a specific kind of ethics, what (I think) is
called virtue ethics.
Several things to say about this…

◦ Keown, at the dawn of Western Buddhist
ethical theorizing, claimed that Buddhist
ethics are a virtue ethics; but the consensus
of later work is that this was clearly untrue,
and even he has abandoned it.
◦ Compassion is one virtue, but as far as I
know, no one has tried seriously to construct
a systematic virtue ethics based only on
compassion.
◦ Actually I’m not sure “systematic virtue
ethics” is even a thing in Western moral
philosophy. Virtue ethics is sometimes
described as whatever vague intuitions are
left after you abandon consequentialism and
deontology.
◦ Compassion-based ethics is not only
possible, it’s nearly universal: it’s what’s
called a Stage 3 ethics in the Kohlberg/
Kegan framework.
◦ That kind of ethics is non-systematic. My
claim was not that emphasizing compassion
leads to the absence of morality, but to the
absence of systematicity.
◦ Keown explains in some detail, in a paper I
referenced, why you can’t base a just war
theory on compassion.
30. There is an important respect in which both
Buddhism and Jainism were ethical revolutions
I agree! As I said at the end of this post,

Buddhist morality is surprisingly good, for a
pre-modern religion.
Iain Sinclair’s “War Magic and ‘Just War’ in
Tantric Buddhism”
Thanks for this reference! If anyone is

interested, it is available at http://sci-hub.io/
http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/
berghahn/socan/2014/00000058/00000001/
art00008# .
This is from 2014. It will be interesting to see
what impact, if any, it has on contemporary
Buddhist just war theory. (None of the sources I
used knew about the text he points to.)
Some things worth noting:
◦ The just war part of this paper concerns only
one, very late, very atypical scripture. It’s
influential in Tibet but unknown elsewhere,
and considered an outlier even within
Tibetan Buddhism. Nevertheless, if we are
looking for a Buddhist just war theory, and
it has one, that is exciting.
◦ The just war part of the paper is only two
paragraphs (on pp. 161 and 162).
◦ The first starts “Here, finally, are clear
Buddhist rules for going to war.” However,
frustratingly, he says very little about what
the rules actually are.
◦ The Kalacakra Tantra has not been
translated into English, so it would take
quite a lot of work for me to check. (I can
puzzle out Tibetan very slowly with a
dictionary.)
◦ Given how vague and brief he is about what
the text says, and given how badly he seems
to want there to be such a thing as Buddhist
just war theory, I have to say I suspect he
may be engaging in wishful thinking, and
reading much more into the text than is
actually there.
31. Christian ethics created the basis of
enlightenment ethics and, over time, did
complete 180s on issues like slavery. How that
kind of historical process could be replicated by
modern Buddhist ethicists, I have no idea, but
simply throwing out Buddhist ethics and
replacing them with secular progressivist ones is
not the same as subjecting them to the kind of
historical evolution in Christian ethics that came
about through centuries of scrutiny, discussion,
and, in some cases, extremely violent conflict.
Yes, I agree with this!

Perhaps a genuine modern Buddhist ethics
would be possible. I don’t see an obvious way to
get there, and I’m not sure it’s something we
should want, expect, or care about. But I’m not
sure not, either! And I’ve made some
preliminary suggestions for what one might look
like later in this blog series—particularly here.
32. BupSahn Sunim says:

July 15, 2016 at 2:25 am
Interesting article but I can’t help feeling it is

wrong to say, “according to scripture, the
Buddha himself (after enlightenment) accepted
slaves as gifts to the sangha, and he did not free
them.” I do not think this is correct. Can
someone provide a source for this if it is indeed
correct. Specifically, which scripture indicates
the Buddha accepted slaves (after all he forbid
monks to do this, even if they didn’t keep the
rule).
July 15, 2016 at 7:43 am
Hi, see this comment. Also, we’ve discussed the

related issues in other comments in this thread, a
number of times. It may be useful to read
through the whole thing.
In short, Schopen’s article has lengthy quotes
from two different versions of vinaya in which
the Buddha himself accepted slaves as gifts to
the sangha, and he did not free them.
after all he forbid monks to do this, even if they
didn’t keep the rule
As far as I know, he did not forbid monks to do

this, in any scripture. What he forbade was
monks accepting gifts of slaves as individuals.
That was not a statement of opposition to
slavery, but an application of the general rule
that monks as individuals cannot accept gifts of
most sorts of property. As far as I know, in each
of the instances in which he forbade individual
monks from accepting gifts of slaves, he simply
included slaves among other types of livestock,
such as cattle.
34. Stephen L. Martin says:

May 9, 2017 at 2:07 pm
Thank you for your post. As a Buddhist of 40

years, it will give me plenty to think about.
Buddhism has one saving grace though. It isn’t
revealed by God and so it isn’t Gospel. The
kalama sutra advises you not to believe anything
until you find out for yourself that it has merit. I
certainly think these problems you point out
would be what I would call the unmeritorious
aspects of the sutras. My only guess is that
having been developed in the iron-age that
Buddhism has been tainted with iron-age
morality.
35. Ilya says:
August 9, 2017 at 2:17 am
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/mn/mn.
061.than.html deals with morality and http://
www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/mn/mn.
008.nypo.html deals with effacement – there is
not much need to say more than that – morality,
is just the first part, the simplest part, of the
Buddhist path:
“7. It is, bhikkhus, only to trifling and
insignificant matters, to the minor details of
mere moral virtue, that a worldling would refer
when speaking in praise of the Tathāgata. And
what are those trifling and insignificant matters,
those minor details of mere moral virtue, to
which he would refer?
‘Having abandoned the destruction of life, the
recluse Gotama abstains from the destruction of
life. He has laid aside the rod and the sword, and
dwells conscientious, full of kindness,
compassionate for the welfare of all living
beings.’ It is in this way, bhikkhus, that the
worldling would speak when speaking in praise
of the Tathāgata…..” (http://
www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/dn/dn.
01.0.bodh.html)
Why is morality and ethics ‘trifling’? Because
for the most part, the Golden rule will see you
through, as in the first link. In truth, a
combination of the information imperfect
Platinum rule ‘do not do unto others that, which
you think/feel/believe they would not want to be
done unto them.. worst case, ask’, as standard
practice and the information perfect Golden rule
(self referential) as a lowest limit for action, will
do just fine.
Morality, within Buddhist, is well defined. The
Buddha considered the moral nexus to lie at the
point of intention (http://
www.accesstoinsight.org/ptf/dhamma/sacca/
sacca4/samma-sankappo/index.html). To be
within ‘right intention’, one cannot act with ill
will or an intention of causing harm, either
through thought, speech or action. Kamma,
within Buddhism, is solely the accrual of
intentional thoughts, speech and actions – if
your intentional actions have generally been
negative towards yourself or others, then you
have ‘bad Kamma’. It’s coming back to you is
not a cosmic thing – not an external entity to
punish you, but dependent on your behavior –
based on the fact you yourself initiated the
process through wrong intention (kill someone
intentionally, and you will likely have someone
dislike you).
Bikkhu Vibhanga rule 3: ‘If a monk
intentionally kills a human being or seeks an
instrument of death for him or praises death or
incites someone to die, saying, “Good man,
what’s the point of this wretched and difficult
life? Death is better for you than life!”—
thinking and intending thus, if he praises death
in various ways or incites someone to die— he
too is expelled and not in communion.’ https://
suttacentral.net/en/pi-tv-bu-vb-pj3 .. I have
never seen a clearer rule than this.
That Buddhists pick up weapons and kill, sure..
human rights have been used as excuses for
interventions around the world too, killing
millions (my conspiracy theory is that in a post
colonial world, the powers need a tool to have
control of the world, and human rights sadly fits
the bill).
That Buddhist societies these days can be just as
sexist as the West is more of a sign of the
underlying conditions between the sexes – 3000
years (Helen of Troy was a landowner, that may
have been the time of the end of substantial
female power in the West) of male dominance
does not die out in a day, especially when men
can still hold physical strength over women.
Look at Hyenas – the females are larger, so they
are aggressive and violent, while the males are
subservient. For a rational mind, there is no
reason to embrace such evolutionary hierarchy
as anything objectively important. But again –
5000 years of cultural history doesn’t change in
a night. Even 70 years of communism for a
fraction of the world’s population meant Yeltzin
had to give the presidency to Putin in ’99 for
fear of a communist rebirth.
The rules for men and women in the vinaya are
different, but then men don’t have boobs, nor do
they menstruate. That is a shallow way to make
a point, but I’m only saying that aspects of
experience for men and women can be different.
in 400BC, when the Buddha set up the first
female monastic order, the world was different.
Take rape: 7% of men are rapists now (100k
females and 10k males in UK every year are
estimated to be raped)..15-30% say they would
rape if they knew they would not get caught.
Imagine a world where the dead are abandoned
at the side of a road, not even buried and a
population density of near 0 and no CCTV. Now
place into that situation a bhikkhuni who has
renounced the world (and all violence). Simply
put, you can’t make rules for the rapist (can’t
stop him at the time of event, won’t find him
later). You must make rules for the potential
victim, by engineering a way for them to avoid
such situations. Only going for alms during
daylight hours is good, not getting too close to
the opposite sex is good. https://suttacentral.net/
en/pi-tv-bi-vb-ss5 for a random rule. Notice the
backstory and reasoning. Establishing that the
bhikkhuni rule-sets were ‘unfair’ to them
relative to the men’s does not take into account
the huge gap in time that separates our society
from theirs. It does not take into account that
theirs was the first order, and societies don’t deal
with such massive change well, even now. All
the rules have a backstory and reasoning for
them too (as in the link to rule 3), so a more
subtle analysis would be requested.
The 8 Garudhammas are unfair as we look at
them now, that much I agree with. But again,
horses for courses, and 500BC is not 2017..
Now! So are the rules outdated to some degree?
Of course! Modern Buddhism doesn’t do
Anapanasati much, nor is it an ermetic,
‘wandering forest monk’ practice, as was in
those days. The Buddha did allow for changes to
minor rules before his parinibbana, but sadly no
one agrees on what they are! (interestingly, a
problem faced by Sunni Islam to some degree,
as ijtihad is out of fashion!)
Sex is simply seen as a villagers act for those
that have renounced the householder’s life. For
the ascetic, it fits in with the whole philosophy
of distancing oneself from attachment, aversion
and ignorance. For the layperson, sex is not
banned, only ‘sexual misconduct’ is. The
discrepancy is reasonable: a renunciate’s aim
(from the Dhamma) is nibbana, the cessation of
mental fermentations, and sex makes the mind
run fast. The layperson’s aim from the Dhamma
is a good life in the here and now (and a good
life on rebirth, one of the heavens or whatnot).
There being different goals between the ascetic
and the layperson, the path can have some
differences.
“Or he might say: ‘Whereas some recluses and
brahmins, while living on the food offered by
the faithful, engage in frivolous chatter, such as:
talk about kings, thieves, and ministers of state;
talk about armies, dangers and wars; talk about
food, drink, garments, and lodgings; talk about
garlands and scents; talk about relatives,
vehicles, villages, towns, cities, and countries;
talk about women and talk about heroes; street
talk and talk by the well; talk about those
departed in days gone by; rambling chit-chat;
speculations about the world and about the sea;
talk about gain and loss — the recluse Gotama
abstains from such frivolous chatter.”
‘I only teach suffering and the end of suffering’,
as the Buddha says. Castes, slaves etc are of no
concern to the path.
Once a person decides to be a bhikkhu or
bhikkhuni, their social status is no longer of any
concern. The path is an individual path, because
there is an acknowledgment that one always has
the power to change themselves, but rarely the
power to change others.. ‘trying to control the
world, I see you won’t succeed’ for a Lao Tzu
take on it!
It is an error to look at the message and the
people following the message and Essentially
link the two – there is a correlation, but it is
never 100% (at least not within our stochastic
experience). To say ‘Buddhist kill therefore the
Buddhist morality is flawed’ is cool, but to say
‘Buddhist kill therefore the Buddha’s morality is
flawed’ is not inherently accurate. The west for
the last 70 (300?) years has had a wonderful
hypothetical morality, as defined within
philosophical writings and later the first
generation human rights (and some second
generation too). But look at us – we continue to
rape Africa for $$, bomb anyone with oil, to
‘spread democracy’, and bomb everyone else
who we generally don’t like. We sanction whole
populations (cut off the free market to them),
and expect them to like us (South Korea’s policy
at the moment is ‘sanctions and discussions’ –
you what?!? reminds me of an even stronger
than strong interpretation of 4:34 within the
Quran – ‘I beat you and you will talk to me’).
Now you say ‘not in my name’, and sure, it is
not (representative democracy guarantees a right
to shout, but not to be heard or listened to). But
the Buddha would have said the same thing –
‘not in the name of the Dhamma, not in the
name of the Buddha, not in the name of the
Sangha’.
Anyways, as your title says – ‘Buddhist’
morality is medieval. But the Dhamma as
expounded by the Buddha – not his followers –
is not. In fact, it is only in 1996 that Rovelli did
the same for our modern western thought with
the anatta that relational QM brings about
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
Relational_quantum_mechanics), as the Buddha
did for thought 2500 years ago. I this sense, the
modern world is only just arriving at the three
marks of existence and the First Noble Truth.
How Asian Buddhism imported

Western ethics
Modern “Buddhist ethics” is indistinguishable from
current secular ethics and has nothing to do with
traditional Buddhist morality.
So, where did it come from, and why?
The short answer is that Buddhist modernizers
simply replaced traditional Buddhist morality with
whatever was the most prestigious Western ethical
system at the time. They decorated that with
vaguely-relevant scriptural quotes, said
“compassion” a lot, and declared victory.
This replacement occurred in roughly three phases:
1. Around 1850-1900, Victorian Christian morality
replaced traditional morality in modernist Asian
Buddhism. This hybrid was successfully re-
exported to the West, but is now unknown in
America, because Victorianism is considered old
fashioned. It’s still influential in Asia.1
2. Around 1900-1960, Western political theories
were imported into Buddhist countries, and were
declared “the Buddhist ethics of social
responsibility.” This was the root of “engaged
Buddhism,” one of the two main strands of
current Western “Buddhist ethics.”
3. In the 1990s, the recently-invented secular
morality of the New Left, identity politics, and
ecological consciousness was declared
“Buddhist” by Consensus Buddhism. This is
mostly what counts as “Buddhist ethics” in the
West today, although most Asian Buddhists
would reject it utterly.
So what?
Well, the question is: are we stuck with this stuff?
Of course, advocates of “Buddhist ethics” would say
“This is what The Buddha taught, so it is Eternal
Truth!” But the correct answer is: No, ordinary
people just made it up, over the past hundred and
fifty years, to solve problems of meaningness that
appeared newly in their times.
So, facing our own new problems of meaningness,
we can—and should—invent something different.
And since “Buddhist ethics” is half of Consensus
Buddhism, this implies an extensive reinvention of
Buddhism for the West.
This page covers the first two, mainly-Asian phases

of the invention of “Buddhist ethics.” The take-away
is that much of the “Buddhist ethics” encountered by
Westerners in Asia in the twentieth century was
already just rebranded Western ethics. The historical
details may not interest most readers, in which case
you can safely skip the rest of this post.
The third, most recent, mostly-Western phase is
more relevant; it’s the subject of the next few pages.
I have not found any general history of modern
Buddhist ethics; my attempt here may be the first in
existence. I’m reasonably confident that the three
points above are accurate, but I would like much
more detail. It could provide starting points for your
own research. If you find anything interesting, please
post it in a comment below!
The wistful certainty of Buddhist

ethics
By the Victorian era, Christianity’s beliefs had
become obviously false. Since Protestantism had
said beliefs were the only important thing, this was a
problem.
So liberal Christians reinvented their religion: the
new important thing was Christ’s humanistic moral
teachings. Jesus was just a man, not supernatural,
but he was the supreme moral teacher, and founder
of Western Civilization. Likewise, they declared,
ethics is the essence of all religions, and since all
religions share a moral core, they are all basically
right.
A problem with de-divinized Christian morality is
that it no longer has a transcendent justification: an
ultimate answer to “why” questions. Also, if
Christianity is only one religion among many, then
its morals may not be quite right. In fact, it’s
obviously wrong on some points.
Nevertheless, Victorian liberals believed that there
must be a correct system of ethics, which must come
with some alternative unassailable foundation, and
we must be able to find it. This is an example of the
pattern of thinking I call “wistful certainty.” It’s
wistful because there’s no reason to believe it. It is
certain only because the alternative is too awful to
contemplate.
Rationally-inclined liberal Victorians developed
secular moral philosophy, trying to find new,
rational foundations for more-or-less the same
morals. (Current secular morality, both left and right,
derives primarily from Christian morality.)
Romantically-inclined Victorians hoped for an
alternative spiritual foundation for ethics. Rejecting
rationality, they were sure Truth lay in the mystical
connection of the True Self with the Absolute
Principle of the Universe.2 Some great civilization,
in a land less barbarous than the ancient Middle
East, must have discovered a correct system of
ethics, and must have based it on this mystical unity.
Surveying the world’s religions, Buddhism looked
most promising. (Buddhist morality is surprisingly
un-bad compared with pre-modern alternatives.) Ah,
the ancient wisdom of the exotic East!
Unfortunately, traditional Buddhist morality is
plainly inferior to liberal Victorian morality. And,
Buddhism does not use mysticism to justify its
morals.3 But, these are mere details! Buddhism must
have the correct ethics—so we need to look harder
to find it.
In fact, since it is not there, the Victorians wrote the
ethics they wanted onto Buddhism, creatively
hallucinating the object of their desire.
But this was not just a European project. Asian
Buddhist modernizers had their own reasons for
inventing “Buddhist ethics,” and they collaborated
vigorously in the project.
First, educated Asians recognized that European
morality was, in fact, superior. It was at minimum a
stage 4 ethical system: a rational structure of
justifications that eliminates arbitrary rules and
assigns sensible weights to different moral
considerations. Traditional Buddhist morality goes
no further than stage 3, which aims only at
communal harmony, not justice. Although Asian
intellectuals disagreed with some specifics, they
could see the value of a justifiable structure; so the
idea of a Buddhist version was compelling.
Second, Asian rulers constructed modern Buddhism
as a defense against colonialism. Europe’s moral
justification for colonialism was “bringing the
benefits of civilization to the benighted savages.”
Demonstrating that an Asian country was fully
civilized successfully prevented the colonization of
Thailand and Japan. One of the greatest benefits of
civilization was a just system of ethics, for which
Christianity was the standard. Christianity was an
instrument of colonialism, so it was urgent for
Asians to invent an alternative system of ethics that
would compare favorably with Christianity on
Europe’s own terms.
The successive re-inventions of “Buddhist ethics”
show the same pattern of “wistful certainty.”
• The creators of Consensus Buddhism were
hippies who left for Asia, sure there must be a
better alternative to both repressive mainstream
1950s morality and amoral 1960s youth-culture
hedonism.
• Around 1990, when “Buddhist ethics” became
suddenly urgent for new reasons, Consensus
leaders were sure it must exist, or their religion
would fail a critical test.
• Many American Buddhists are now sure
Buddhist ethics must give a transcendental
justification for their left-wing politics.
• Academic “Buddhist ethicists” are sure there
must be such a thing (although they can’t find
it).4
The unthought assumptions are “ethics is the
valuable part of religion” and “Buddhism must be
better than Christianity, because Christianity sucks
and if there’s nothing better the whole universe is
awful and we can’t face that.”
Buddhism imports Victorian morality

The British Indologists: Second-best ethics
By the early 1800s, Britain had grabbed Sri Lanka,
most of India, and a chunk of Burma. British
intellectuals, missionaries, and colonial
administrators sought to understand these new
possessions, including their history and religion.
They regarded Buddhism as primarily an ethical
system, and the second-best one after Christianity.
The 1842 edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica
wrote:
The doctrine and law of Gautama consist chiefly in
observing five commandments, and abstaining from
ten sins.
Theravada Buddhism and The British Encounter and
The British Discovery of Buddhism include lengthy
discussions of this theory of Buddhism as mainly
ethics. Authors of the time produced diverse proofs
that Christianity was superior to Buddhism
(although Buddhism was considered surprisingly
good). The similarity of Buddhism to Catholicism
was much noted and derided—which later motivated
the Protestant Buddhist Reformation.
The idea that Buddhism is mostly ethics might
sound odd to Consensus Buddhists, for whom
meditation is the most important thing, with ethics
coming second. However, meditation hadn’t been
invented yet.
I have not found evidence that early European
theorizing about Buddhism fed into the Asian
Buddhist modernization project that began with
Mongkut. I think it’s likely, though.
Mongkut invents Buddhist ethics
Mongkut, the genius who became King of Siam in
1851, single-handedly invented modern Buddhism.
Before becoming King, Mongkut was a monk, and
he also gave himself a complete Western education,
including Western philosophy and religion. He had
close relationships with several Christian priests and
pastors, including the local Roman Catholic Bishop.
Mongkut invited [the Bishop] to preach Christian
sermons to his brother monks in the Wat. The
sermons and discussions were impressive. Mongkut
admired the Christian morals and achievements
which the Bishop explained to his yellow-robed
congregation, but [Mongkut] could make nothing of
Christian doctrine. With immodest presumption he
commented: “What you teach people to do is
admirable but what you teach them to believe is
foolish.”
The kingdom which he inherited was a feudal corner
of Asia, an absolute monarchy in which the people
were forbidden to look upon the face of the King.
Slavery was common, polygamy normal… King
Mongkut determined to change all this.5
“What you [Christians] teach people to do is
admirable but what you teach them to believe is
foolish” neatly summarizes the “Buddhist ethics”
project overall.
I have not yet found a detailed discussion of
Mongkut’s Christianizing reinvention of Buddhist
ethics. I do know that his Foreign Minister, a
member of his close circle, published a book that
“presents Buddhism as primarily a system of social
ethics; heaven and hell are not places but have a
moral or pedagogical utility; kamma is not an actual
causal force but a genetic principle…”6
The Rhys Davids: A body of moral doctrine
Thomas and Caroline Rhys Davids founded and
operated the Pali Text Society. They published
English translations of the Theravada scriptures and
traditional commentaries, plus their own
commentaries and explanations of Buddhism.
They had an enormous influence on Asian Buddhism
because the traditional texts had never been
translated from Pali into other Asian languages.
Very few monks (and no lay people) could read Pali.
Progressive Asian elites could read English,
however, so the Rhys Davids translations and
commentaries became the de facto source for
modern Theravada.
The Rhys Davids had their own agenda and
interpretation of what Buddhism should be,
however, and their translations reflected that.
The contents of the books are not mythological, nor
theological, nor metaphysical, but above all ethical,
and in the second place, psychological.7
Caroline “as a student was already a prolific writer
and a vocal campaigner in the movements for
poverty relief, children’s rights, and women’s
suffrage.”8 Her first Pali Text Society publication
was A Buddhist manual of psychological ethics. In
her “Buddhism and Ethics,” she writes that
“Buddhism is only a body of moral doctrine,” and
“even the remarkable efforts of Buddhism in
psychological analysis were apparently made solely
for an ethical purpose.”
Olcott and Dharmapala: the Buddhist work
ethic
Sri Lankan Buddhism was modernized by the
extraordinary team of the American Colonel Henry
Steel Olcott and the Western-educated Sinhalese
Anagarika Dharmapala. (I discussed this in “A new
World Religion” and “Theravada reinvents
meditation.”)
Olcott, the President of the Theosophical Society,
read progressive Victorian ethics into Buddhism:
Olcott insists that Buddhism perfectly embodies the
social virtues highly valued among liberal
modernists: women are on a “footing of perfect
equality with men”…9
This is completely false, but by wistful-certainty
logic, it should have been true, and therefore it must
have been true.
Dharmapala invented a new “lay Buddhist ethics”
that had almost no Buddhist content. Rather,
“Protestant and Western norms [were] assimilated as
pure and ideal Buddhist systems.”10 His 1898 Daily
Code for the Laity:
can be said to apply Protestant values to the details
of daily life, very much on the model of any late
Victorian manual of etiquette. The aim throughout is
to elevate rustic manners. The pamphlet contains
200 rules on such subjects as conduct recommended
for women, children and servants, table manners,
and how to use the lavatory. In its more ethical
aspects, as in relations between the master of the
house and his dependents, the booklet stands in the
tradition of the Advice to Sigala. But when
Dharmapala prescribes use of the fork, an object
hardly known in Sri Lanka below the upper-middle
class, the specifically western model is evident.11
This was true in less trivial matters as well. Thus
Dharmapala and the other early Protestant Buddhist
lay leaders preached a sexual puritanism to such
effect that not only has monogamy become the norm
of the Sinhalese bourgeoisie; it is believed, quite
incorrectly, to be the traditional norm. The
bourgeoisie have adopted western Victorian
morality, and the contemporary West is considered
lax and corrupt in falling from that standard. By a
similar misunderstanding Dharmapala considered
caste to be un-Buddhist.12
The Advice to Sigala, or Sigalovada Sutta, is the
only Theravada text that can plausibly be interpreted
as a code of lay morality more detailed than the
Precepts. That made it important in early attempts to
invent “Buddhist ethics.” It’s an odd document; I’m
not sure what to make of it. The central point seems
to be “to get to heaven, you need to be rich; here’s
how to be rich.” That may be an attractive message
in Asia, but it’s repellent for leftish Americans, so
it’s strictly ignored by Consensus Buddhists.
The Advice is sound, though. The way to prosperity
—for individuals and societies—is delayed
gratification. You have to cut current consumption in
order to invest in productive assets. You need to
control your impulses and remain level-headed. You
need to work hard, you need trustworthy business
partners, and you need to avoid time-wasting, mind-
clouding interpersonal conflicts. That’s the Buddha’s
advice to Sigala.
It’s also the essence of the “Protestant Work Ethic,”
which—Max Weber argued influentially in 1905—is
the basis for the modern world: capitalism,
rationalism, and the nation-state. This ethics began
in Calvinism, but already in Weber’s time it had
transformed into fully secular mainstream morality.
And into Buddhism—in Dharmapala’s Code.
The Sigalovada is peculiar in presenting an ethics of
delayed gratification in service of material
accumulation.13 Generally, Buddhism is renunciate,
not Protestant.14 The critical difference is that
Buddhism says all sensual gratification ties you to
samsara by making it seem attractive, so all sense
pleasures must be abandoned. Protestant Buddhism
replaces renunciation with suspicion, and with
moderation. Enjoyment is dangerous, because it can
lead to impulsiveness and overconsumption.
However, pleasures are OK if they are the right
kinds of pleasures in the right amount at the right
time for the right reason, so long as you carefully
guard against having too much fun and thereby
losing control.
Since renunciation is totally unacceptable to
Westerners, and since Protestantism is the basis for
secular Western ethics, quietly replacing Buddhist
values with Protestant ones was the key move in
constructing “Buddhist ethics.”
Buddhism, Western political theories,

and social justice
In the 1800s, Christians criticized Buddhism for its
complete lack of teachings on social responsibility.
Hinayana is a path of individual salvation through
withdrawal from society. Mahayana recommends
saving all sentient beings, but has little practical
advice about how, and none as to how society
should be organized. Buddhist scripture takes
feudalism15 for granted, and endorses the cosmic
right of kings to rule (so long as they support
Buddhism).
Although social and political issues such as
kingship, war, crime, and poverty are mentioned in
scriptures, [they and later Buddhist thinkers] had
little interest in developing moral or political
theories. The concept of justice, for example, is
seldom—if ever—mentioned in Buddhist literature.
16
In reply to missionary criticism, Theravadins pointed

to the Sigalovada Sutta; but it only explains how a
rich man should treat his immediate associates. It’s
far from a Buddhist theory of social justice.
Buddhism could give no serious response until well
into the 1900s.
In that century, Asia imported various Western
political and social ideologies. These were lightly
sprinkled with Buddhist jargon, thereby giving rise
to supposedly-Buddhist theories of social
responsibility, which were re-exported to the West.
The modern term, coined by Thich Nhat Hanh, is
“engaged Buddhism.” This has scant, if any,
relationship with traditional Buddhist doctrine or
practice. It is:
in fact Greco-Judaic ideals of social action and
social transformation… Teachings that prioritize
action for societal good do seem comfortable and
‘right’ to many Americans, of course. This should
come as no surprise if the values of ‘Engaged
Buddhism’ derive fundamentally from these
Westerners’ own intellectual tradition, albeit
couched in ‘Buddhist’ terms. The Buddha’s
discourses in the Pāli texts, in contrast, focus on
liberation within an individual’s ‘world of
experience’.17
‘Buddhist’ vocabulary is sometimes employed in a
framework of values that belong much more to the
Judeo-Christian tradition. In recent years, for
instance, there has been movement towards an
ecumenical ‘Buddhism’ that defines itself as
‘Engaged’ with social and environmental issues.
Some have justified this focus by referring to
doctrines from the texts such as ‘skillful conduct’
and ‘inter-dependence’. Given their native
philosophical frameworks, though, the connections
between some of the textual doctrines cited and the
social activism advocated are quite tenuous.18
Engaged Buddhism’s Western roots don’t invalidate
it. Maybe there could be a fruitful synthesis. But one
should ask whether there is one, and what (if
anything) it draws from Buddhism. One should
wonder whether pretending Western ideas are
Buddhist is a strategy for hiding their flaws.
I’ll discuss only two threads in the Asian
development of Buddhist social theory: Buddhadasa
Bikkhu in Theravada, and the lineage of Engaged
Buddhism, which began with Chinese Humanistic
Buddhism.
Buddhadasa Bikkhu: Dhammic Socialism
Buddhadasa Bikkhu (1906-1993) was a key Thai
Buddhist modernizer. He developed his own method
of vipassana, and eventually abandoned Buddhism
for a European Perennialist theory of universal
religion.
He also was a socialist, and developed a “Dhammic
Socialism” that was a major influence on the 1932
revolution that ended the absolute monarchy. He had
many Western students, and I assume that his
political ideas were an influence on Western
“engaged Buddhism,” but don’t have specific
evidence of that.
Engaged Buddhism
Taixu (1890-1947) and his student Yin Shun
(1906-2005) were founders of Chinese Humanistic
Buddhism. Taixu was heavily influenced by Western
political theory, and was actively involved in the
1911 modernist revolution that overthrew the
emperor and established the Republic. He wrote:
My social and political thought was based upon ‘Mr.
Constitution’, the Republican Revolution, Socialism,
and Anarchism… I came to see Anarchism and
Buddhism as close companions, and as a possible
advancement from Democratic Socialism.
He was also strongly influenced by Christianity.
“While in Europe, Taixu saw the successes of
Christian charitable organizations and hoped to bring
that organization style into his reformed Buddhism.”
His version of Buddhist modernism sought to
establish a Pure Land on earth: in the human realm,
not a mythological paradise in the sky.19
As a young man, Yin Shun studied comparative
religion, particularly Christianity, in depth. He
turned to Buddhism only in the late 1920s, and
became a monk in 1930. By that time, Buddhism in
China was in steep decline, and widely criticized as
useless superstitious nonsense that brought no
benefits to lay people. Yin Shun agreed, and wished
to reform it as a religion of practical charitable
action. He became a disciple of Taixu. After the
Communists took power in the 1940s, he moved to
Taiwan, where he became the most influential
Buddhist leader. He and his students established
Humanistic Buddhism as the foremost Taiwanese
religion, and their evangelism has spread the
movement worldwide.
Thich Nhat Hanh, born 1926, is the most important
figure in contemporary Buddhist social theory. His
early conception of engaged Buddhism was based
mainly on Chinese Humanistic Buddhism. He also
studied comparative religion at Princeton University
in the early 1960s, and is thoroughly conversant with
Western philosophy, religion, ethics, and social and
political theory.
Bikkhu Bodhi, a white American Theravadin (born
1944), was a student of Yin Shun. Bikkhu Bodhi has
been a major contributor to engaged Buddhism,
drawing primarily on Yin Shun’s ideas. He founded
Buddhist Global Relief.
New Left ideas led many American Buddhists to see
social injustice and structural oppression as primary
causes of suffering. The Christian charitable model
of providing direct practical assistance treats only
symptoms, whereas the success of the 1960s protest
movements showed that political action can strike at
root causes. The Buddhist Peace Fellowship is a
network of radical Buddhist political activists,
influenced particularly by Thich Nhat Hanh. Many
—perhaps most—of the leaders of Consensus
Buddhism are members.
It’s interesting to compare the activity lists of
Buddhist Global Relief and the Buddhist Peace
Fellowship. Buddhist Global Relief, although
mentioning “social justice” in passing, provides
food, money, technical training, and general
education to poor people in Asia. This is the
Christian charitable model. The Buddhist Peace
Fellowship organizes marches against (as of
September 2015) Shell Oil, “racism, sexism, climate
disasters, and economic oppression,” development
plans on one California farm and possible
contamination of others with possibly toxic
chemicals, and American police weapons expos.
This is the New Left protest model.
1. A little-known fact: Buddhism was hip and

popular in New York and Boston in the 1890s,
just as it was in the 1990s. (The First World War
seems to have put an end to such frivolity.) Sri
Lankan Buddhism maintained Victorian
Christian morality until the late 20th century; see
the quote from Gombrich below.
2. They got this idea from Hegel, mostly.
3. Shantideva’s work connecting Mahayana ethics
and metaphysics may be an exception.
4. Damien Keown, one of the foremost academic
Buddhist ethicists, expresses this view in a
recent paper. He points out that no workable
Buddhist ethics currently exists, and there are
reasons to think none can exist, but “we should
not give up the search just yet.”
5. Robert Bruce, “King Mongkut Of Siam And His
Treaty With Britain,” Journal of the Hong Kong
Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, Vol. 9
(1969), pp. 82-100.
6. Donald K. Swearer, “Buddhism in Southeast
Asia,” in The Religious Traditions of Asia:
Religion, History, and Culture, p. 134.
7. Thomas William Rhys Davids, Buddhism: Its
History and Literature, 1896, p. 80.
8. From the Wikipedia article on her.
9. David L. McMahan, The Making of Buddhist
Modernism, p. 101.
10. Richard Gombrich and Gananath
Obeyesekere, Buddhism Transformed: Religious
Change in Sri Lanka, p. 215.
11. Dharmapala’s Buddhist ethics also includes
eight rules on “how to behave in buses and
trains.”
12. Richard F. Gombrich, Theravada Buddhism:
A Social History from Ancient Benares to
Modern Colombo, p. 142.
13. The Dighajanu (Vyagghapajja) Sutta has a
similar message. I don’t know of any others.
14. Tantra is, of course, neither renunciate nor
Protestant. A later post discusses the ethical
implications of that.
15. Some Buddhist authors reject the word
“feudalism” on the grounds that the South Asian
“samanta” or “mandala” political model was not
exactly the same. The theoretical differences
between the two are mildly interesting in a
geeky way, but don’t amount to much.
(Basically, the samanta model is a bit looser.)
Anyway, the practical reality of both the feudal
and samanta systems amounted to whatever the
local warlord could get away with; theory be
damned.
16. Damien Keown, “Buddhist ethics: a
critique,” in Buddhism in the Modern World, p.
217; italics added and words omitted for
concision.
17. Jake H. Davis, Strong Roots: Liberation
Teachings of Mindfulness in North America,
2004, p. 155.
18. Strong Roots, p. 269. Similarly, Jan Nattier
wrote in 1997: “So thoroughly do Elite Buddhist
concerns (such as ‘engaged Buddhism,’ much of
it the result of Western social activism exported
to Asia and subsequently re-exported to the
West) dominate the media’s picture of
Buddhism that these groups often appear to be
the only game in town.”
19. He was, therefore, attempting to
immanentize the eschaton.
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Related
within the left…
societies: similar to what you'd find in Medieval
often cruel. In Europe, Enlightenment rationalism
enabled smart people to say "wait,…
“Nice” Buddhism
Consensus Western Buddhism is a religion of
niceness. Unfortunately, niceness does not define
Buddhism, or have anything much to do with it. To
give the impression that the Consensus is what
Buddhism naturally should be, it has to suppress all
alternatives (which are not about niceness). Of
course, the Consensus…

Buddhism, Engaged Buddhism, ethics, modernism,
Victorian morality
35 thoughts on “How Asian Buddhism
imported Western ethics”
2. Amod Lele says:

So there’s a lot to talk about here, but let me first

get out of the way this stuff about a “stage 4
ethical system”. IMHO, this line of thinking
needs to go, as it’s possibly the single least
justifiable piece of Wilber’s system (which,
overall, has significantly less reasoning about
ethics than Śāntideva’s does). Ontogeny does
not recapitulate phylogeny in ethical
development; the claim that it does depends on
an ignorance of premodern systems and their
differences. Even assuming that you’re right
about Buddhism having no ethical system (as
I’ve already questioning), medieval Christianity
certainly did; Thomas Aquinas was more
systematic about his ethics than are most 20th-
century ethicists. And given that Kohlberg’s
evidence is drawn from modern Western
societies in the first place, even at the individual
level it’s a leap too far to generalize his ideas of
stages of reasoning outside those societies.
Some further thoughts on the point: http://
loveofallwisdom.com/blog/2012/02/macintyre-
against-wilbers-worldcentrism/
3. jayarava says:
Hi David,
As usual a couple of comments. Buddhism was
popular in Europe in the 1890s as well
(alongside interest in the Upaniṣads). Edwin
Arnold’s poem The Light of Aisa was a best
seller.
You say “Traditional Buddhist morality goes no
further than stage 3, which aims only at
communal harmony, not justice.” I’m not sure I
agree with this. Buddhists certainly had a
conception of a “just world” and the idea goes
back a long way in India. Karma is the
instrument of creating a just world, and like
other religious systems relies on an afterlife to
enact justice. And Buddhists clearly sought to
retain and maintain karma & rebirth as they
tinkered with doctrines over the centuries. For
example in trying to fix the disconnect between
karma and pratītyasamutpāda, the Buddhists
tinkered with pratītyasamutpāda and largely left
karma alone. I attribute this to a commitment to
the myth of a just world.
Is it delaying justice until the afterlife that makes
you argue that traditional Buddhism did not aim
at justice? Or does the theory of karma not
qualify for some other reason?
It might be worth mentioning that TW and CAF
Rhys Davids founded the PTS and were the first
and second presidents. In fact German scholars
had begun working in/on Pāḷi a little earlier I
think. TW had worked as a judge in Ceylon and
the local lawyers kept bringing up precedents
from monastic law. Getting access to these legal
precedents is what motivated him to learn Pāḷi.
And of course as a classically educated
Englishman he was well placed to do so.
You mention that Mahāyāna Buddhism takes
feudalism for granted. I think you could go
further than this and argue that it endorses
feudalism. Indeed this was a major factor in the
introduction of Buddhism in Japan in ca. 552
CE, from the Korean aristocracy directly to the
Japanese Aristocracy (who were partly Korean).
Certain texts, notably the Saddharmapuṇḍarikā
and Suvarṇabhāsottama, endorse and promise to
protect kings who have the text recited or
copied. It reinforced the existing authority
provided by Confucius for Imperialism – the
emperor was obliged to bestow order and culture
on the poor, stupid barbarians. In East Asia the
monasteries were key players in feudalism, and
of course in Tibetan the monks became the
feudal lords.
4. Seth Zuiho Segall says:
David, I understand your historical line of

reasoning here, but am unsure what your main
point is. All religions follow this line of
evolution as they engage with other traditions.
We can see how Avicenna’s, Maimonides’s and
St. Thomas’s encounters with Aristotle changed
Islam, Judaism, and Christianity. We can see
how Judaism morphed from an animal sacrifice
cult devoted to one deity among a world of
many deities to a book-based monotheism
stressing prayer, charity, and repentance. We can
see how Buddhism morphed as it journeyed
from culture to culture and era to era, influenced
by other emerging Indian, Tibetan, and Chinese
religions and philosophies like Tantra, Bon, and
Taoism. We can see the current Catholic Church
under Pope Francis struggling with traditional
Catholic ethics and newer emerging social and
political ideas about equality. All these religions
are streams of history that evolve as they
encounter, are challenged by, are misunderstood
by and re-construed in the light of new
conditions and ideas. There is no eternal,
unchanging Buddhism. I would say — rather
than saying there are no Buddhist ethics — that
there are different sets of Buddhist ethics that
have changed with different cultures and eras, as
Peter Harvey’s “Introduction to Buddhist
Ethics” clearly shows: The Tibetans abhorred
homosexuality, the Japanese, not so much.
As any philosophical and religious tradition
matures, it has to deal with the same issues
concerning deontology, consequentialism, virtue
ethics, etc. that all philosophical and religious
ethical systems eventually have to deal with. It
shouldn’t be any wonder if eventually, through
dialogue, they begin to converge. What will
keep any Buddhist ethics still “Buddhist” is a
continued emphasis on non-harming and non-
greed and and a sustained emphasis on
interdependence and compassion. It does not
need to claim to be uniquely Buddhist, because
every tradition is free to rediscover the dharma
–“the ways things are.” I’m reminded here of
Thich Nhat Hanh’s claim that given his
interpretation of emptiness as “interbeing,”
Buddhism entirely made up of non-Buddhist
elements, in the same way that a flower is made
up entirely of non-flower elements.
If “Consensus Buddhism” (I still think your
“Consensus Buddhism” is a straw man) has
come to more or less agree on an understanding
of what it believes to be the best Buddhist
modernist ethics it can devise, I’ve no problem
with it. If you have a better ethics that still feels
consistent with core Buddhist principles, on with
the show.

Amod Lele — Kohlberg’s model was tested

extensively trans-culturally; it’s not just based
on Westerners. The finding was that the stage
series is invariant in all cultures (although in
some cultures, few people get beyond stage 3).
I have a pretty low opinion of Wilber; I don’t
take him seriously, and wouldn’t want to defend
him. I do think that stage 4 has a coherent logic
that you can’t reach either as an individual or as
a society unless you’ve got stage 3 solid, and the
same for 5 following 4.
Systematicity is a matter of degree; all the great
ancient civilizations were somewhat systematic.
And individual geniuses rise above the ambient
level; Shantideva and Aquinas being two fine
examples.
From your interesting post on Wilber and
MacIntyre:
There is no attempt to show why egocentric or
sociocentric ethics breaks down on its own terms
and needs to move to a higher level.
This is central to Kegan’s work. He does work

out, in detail, exactly this. I’ll explain that in an
upcoming post (scheduled for about three weeks
from now).

jayarava — Thanks, as usual!

Is it delaying justice until the afterlife that makes
you argue that traditional Buddhism did not aim
at justice? Or does the theory of karma not
qualify for some other reason?
What I said was that stage 3 doesn’t aim at

justice, rather than that Buddhism doesn’t. I can
see how my wording makes this less clear than it
should be, but couldn’t find an easy patch, even
using a footnote. The karmic system of cosmic
justice seems stage 1 to me. Absent from
Buddhism, apparently, is any consideration of
this-worldly justice (which would tend toward
stage 4).
worth mentioning that TW and CAF Rhys
Davids founded the PTS
Done!
you could go further than this and argue that it
endorses feudalism.
Excellent point; I’ve added a half-sentence to

that effect.

Seth Zuiho Segall — Hi, nice to see you here

again. I like your writing a lot (although we have
quite different views on Buddhism).
The overall question is “What do we want
Buddhism for?” What does it have to offer that
we can’t get easier or better elsewhere?
The recent imbroglio over Buddhist vs secular
mindfulness puts this question pointedly. (I have
written a page about this, which I’ll post in
around two weeks.) What does Buddhism have
to offer that MBSR does not? Ron Purser and
others have argued that Buddhism teaches ethics
and MBSR does not. Secularists have replied by
saying that they do teach ethics, so the criticism
is unjustified. My upcoming post references your
own particularly clear defense along those lines.
But if ethics is not Buddhism’s special sauce,
which secular mindfulness cannot offer, then
what does distinguish it?
What will keep any Buddhist ethics still
“Buddhist” is a continued emphasis on non-
harming and non-greed and and a sustained
emphasis on interdependence and compassion.
Isn’t that emphasis characteristic of all

contemporary leftish secular ethics? (The first
page in this series cites Haidt and Lakoff as
saying that it is.)
You have done a nice job defending secular
mindfulness against Buddhist criticism. How
would you defend Buddhism against the secular
criticism that it has nothing to offer besides
generic leftish ethics and mindfulness
meditation, both of which are available
elsewhere with less jargon and mythology?
If you have a better ethics that still feels
consistent with core Buddhist principles, on with
the show.
I do intend to sketch that, in upcoming posts,

although it won’t be more than a sketch!

BTW, here is a good review of research on the

cross-cultural validity of Kohlberg’s theory.
At present [1985], 44 studies have been
completed in 26 cultural areas. Longitudinal
research has been carried out in the following
countries: Bahamas, Canada (French), India,
Indonesia, Israel (kibbutz), Turkey, and the
United States. The remaining 20 cultural areas
are represented only by cross-sectional studies:
Alaska (Eskimos), England, Finland, Germany,
Guatemala, Honduras, Hong Kong, Iran, Japan,
Kenya, Mexico, New Zealand, Nigeria, New
Guinea, Pakistan, Puerto Rico, Taiwan,
Thailand, Yucatan, and Zambia.
Kohlberg’s model does have several serious

problems (mostly because it over-emphasizes
rationality). Kegan incorporates emotion,
relationship, and action into the model, thereby
correcting many of the issues with Kohlberg’s
theory. I don’t think it’s The Truth About Ethics,
but I find considerable valuable insight there.
9. jayarava says:
I’m looking at the article by Snarey and thinking

that Kohlberg’s model seems to be at odds with
the bulk of evolutionary oriented stuff I’ve read
in recent years. It still looks like Neoliberalism
and makes all kinds of assumptions that now
seem false to me. I don’t see any human culture
in which stage 1 is meaningful – stage one is a
regression away from the basic structure of a
successful social animal. Wild chimps seem to
me to operate at stage 3. The model makes no
distinction between intimates and strangers, and
I think we’re already established that this is
crucial in understanding human morality. I’ll try
to track down something by Kegan, but this
model looks anachronistic at best.
I remain to be convinced that how people
answer questions about moral dilemmas tells us
anything at all about how they behave on a day
to day basis.
I find laughable the assumption that one can test
individuals out of contact with their social
setting and get meaningful insights into their
behaviour. It’s a fundamental misunderstanding
of what we are and how we make decisions.
10. jayarava says:
More fundamentally I think Richard Payne’s

point about agents is crucial. Buddhism is not an
agent. Only Buddhists can be agents. Buddhism
is not at any moral stage. Buddhists can be at
different moral stages in the same community
with the same rules. The rules themselves tell us
nothing at all about the moral development of
individuals, nor the social dynamic in which
they operated. Indeed the same rules may reflect
very different ethical development in different
cultures across time and place.
Therefore you seem to be misusing the model of
stages of moral development. Kohlberg’s model
doesn’t apply to cultures, it applies to
individuals (and as above I don’t think this
application makes sense either!)
Buddhism at any stage offers a variety of
motivations for ethical behaviour: for example,
fear of suffering in this life, fear of a bad rebirth,
and fear of disapproval (of community, of the
wise, of the Buddha); desire for a better rebirth,
desire to end rebirth, desire for approval, desire
to transcend suffering, empathy etc. How such
motivations translated into moral behaviour at
any point in time is moot. The further back in
time we go, the less information we have –
following something like an inverse square law.
We have to rely more and more on texts we
know to be unreliable. If we know the texts to be
fictions, then justifying a judgement about what
moral stage Buddhists were at at any point in
time requires something other than the evidence
of the texts. And what we are not seeing is other
kinds of evidence for the argument.
My guess is that we have no reliable information
about how Buddhists actually behaved before
about 1900. Thus no real information on how
moral Buddhists were.
Also as I’ve said several times without getting a
response, the sutras are not the only class of
Buddhist text, and my understanding is that
Jātakas were far more important in informing lay
ethics than sutras, certainly in Theravāda
countries. One would not expect sutras to be of
any importance in formulating secular morality,
even in nominally Buddhist countries. The role
of sutras seems to be vastly overstated and the
other kinds of Buddhist literature, particularly
śāstric, are ignored completely in this account.
By the Common Era few if any people, even
monks, learned about Buddhism from reading
sutras. The narrow focus on sutras is a modernist
preoccupation.
11. roughgarden says:

Thanks for introducing me to Buddhadasa

Bhikkhu and Taixu and Yin Shun. They were
remarkable people who led some pretty amazing
social movements in their day. And their
writings on both eastern and western social
philosophies sound intriguing. I’m going to read
more about them in my quest to further develop
engaged Buddhism.

@Seth Zuiho Segall; Touché. I tried to say this

in another comment, but yours is so much more
erudite. Buddhism is constantly changing and
adapting, taking on new ideas and new forms
from cultures into which it is adopted, and as
you pointed out, so does every other religion.

jayarava — Thank you again for extensive, on-

point comments.
Your 1:36 a.m. comment accurately identifies
most of the main problems with Kohlberg’s
model. He was transferring ideas from moral
philosophy, which is comprehensively
worthless, to experimental psychology. The data
are highly reproducible, but the implications he
drew are somewhat mistaken.
Kegan does correct all the problems you
identify, except that his work predates the
evopsych revolution. I think his story is
compatible with evopsych, but no one has yet
done that synthesis explicitly. I think that could
actually correct a “pendulum swung too far”
tendency in Haidt’s work (e.g.) to completely
discount rationality.
One of Kegan’s major sources of insight was his
work as a psychotherapist and as an
organizational consultant. Much of what people
want psychotherapists and organization
consultants for is help with actual real-life moral
dilemmas, so he had heard hundreds of people
talking those through. This has a very different
texture from the silly hypothetical problems
Kohlberg worked with, and those differences
drove the theory changes. As a source of data,
it’s anecdotal and unscientific, but he was
subsequently able to operationalize and validate
the insights experimentally.
I don’t see any human culture in which stage 1 is
meaningful
All children go through stage 1. There is no

intact adult culture in which stage 1 is
predominant.
The model makes no distinction between
intimates and strangers
Yeah, Kohlberg thought that universalism was

the highest morality, so he downplayed that.
Others working in the general framework have
looked at how ingroup/outgroup relationships
work differently at different stages.
I’ll try to track down something by Kegan
His Evolving Self is the only available

introduction, and it’s fairly hard going. I will
provide a ~3,000 word overview in this blog
series before applying it to Buddhism.
Buddhists can be at different moral stages in the
same community with the same rules. The rules
themselves tell us nothing at all about the moral
development of individuals, nor the social
dynamic in which they operated. … Kohlberg’s
model doesn’t apply to cultures
Yes, definitely. However, a culture provides—or

fails to provide—specific resources for
development from stage to stage. If the
fundamental social practices and moral concepts
needed to develop to stage 4 are not present in
the culture, it is difficult (although perhaps not
impossible) to make that transition. The main
reason I’m going on about this is that I will
argue (in about three weeks) that Consensus
Buddhism is failing to provide the resources
needed to transition to stage 4, and may actively
hinder that development. Better Buddhisms
could actively support it, instead.
(Until I actually lay out that argument, it may
not be useful to prefigure it here in more
detail…)
My guess is that we have no reliable information
about how Buddhists actually behaved before
about 1900. Thus no real information on how
moral Buddhists were.
I agree. What we can say is that there is no

written record that suggests stage 4 social
practices and moral concepts were available in
any Buddhist culture—other than, possibly, the
Nalanda university culture of the Pala era,
exemplified by Shantideva.
my understanding is that Jātakas were far more
important in informing lay ethics than sutras…
The narrow focus on sutras is a modernist
preoccupation.
I agree. But that’s exactly why I’m focusing on

them too! This page is about how contemporary
Western Buddhist ethics came to be. And the
answer is, in part, that it’s a Victorian invention
based on the Protestant assumption that the
suttas were the correct basis for Buddhist ethics.
That was silly for lots of reasons, but the
“Buddhist ethics” we have now reflects their
misunderstanding—and has nothing to do with
pre-modern Buddhist moral practice.
14. Amod Lele says:

David, FYI, I have written two responses to this

series of posts, which will go up on Love of All
Wisdom in October.

Thanks, Amod, I look forward to reading them!

There’s about eight more posts in this series,
which take it in directions that might not be
expected yet. Possibly it would make sense to
wait to respond until it finishes (mid/late
October), but obviously that’s up to you!
16. Amod Lele says:

That’s actually about the timing I imagine,

although the posts are already written – I try to
have a regular schedule of a post every two
weeks, so they go up well in advance. May or
may not rewrite…
17. Foster Ryan says:

David, I have a few thoughts on this. First, this

is a very interesting topic. I have been pondering
social/political theories for some time and
noticed that Buddhism is not very rich in them,
except for maybe the Tibetan theocratic one.
This got me to thinking that Rawlsian thought
could easily fit well with the leftish Buddhism.
OTOH, you could probably easily fit a number
of other theories, including more conservative
ones. Still, Rawls is my favorite and seems to
me to be the best fit as it balances compassion
with freedom/responsibility. I have also tried to
match western ethical approaches and this seems
to me to be where it gets trickier. Different
versions of the dharma seem to match all the
different theories. We have stoic ideas in
theravadan/sutrayana approaches; Mahayana
seems to go well with Aristotle and virtue ethics,
along with Christian ethics; vajrayana seems to
approach something like Utilitarianism and
enters into Nietzche land, and dzogchen enters
into postmodernism and maybe then ethics
becomes heavily Nietzchian while maintaining
all the earlier systems. It seems that these
vehicles step through all kinds of levels of
ethical approaches so they are all in there. By
the time you are practicing dzogchen type
meditations you need to have absorbed all of the
different earlier levels and be able to embody
them spontaneously and toggle between them
without intention. Just like vajrayana and
mahayana point out that their approaches exist in
the early sutras but were just not unpacked, so I
think is the case here.The west has a gift, and a
curse, for analysis, but the East still had the
same ideas just not so heavily rationalized.
Therefore, our own traditions and thinking really
can fit without conflict into Buddhist thought.
The earlier Buddhists clearly did a lot less
developing of political thought, however, but
maybe that was a good thing. When Western
religion heavily mixed politics and religion it led
to the suppression of our religious traditions and
caused them to be edited for political reasons.
This led us to be talking about Buddhism right
now, as it was free to develop without too much
interference (although even it got very political
in China and Tibet). Again, when the Gelug
order got powerful it suppressed other schools of
Buddhism in Tibet and led to a suppression of
their thought, which has only recently revived(in
the Rime movement). I think it would be great to
really merge these worlds and we will all
benefit.
18. jayarava says:

These “everything you were taught and think

you know is wrong” moments are incredibly
valuable. I suppose I’ve had 6 or 7 in my adult
life that have substantially changed my
orientation, including some I’ve experienced as
a Buddhist. This seems to be another.

@David Chapman; I have read all your posts
thus far on “Buddhist ethics.” So far you have
not once defined, in detail what “ethics” is. You
suggest in several places that ethics involves
“ethical principles”, but you never define those
principles nor explain how they are to be applied
in a variety of situations.
In “Traditional Buddhism has no ethical
system”:
There is no such thing as Buddhist ethics
“This assertion relies on a distinction between
“ethics,” which involve justifications, and
“morals,” which are statements about right and
wrong that are given without explanations.
Traditional Buddhism has only morality, not
ethics, in this sense. Some modern academic
Buddhist ethicists attempt to supply the missing
justifications, by borrowing Western ethical
principles.”
and again
“What’s missing is justifications: the “whys”
and “wherefores” that are the substance of
Western ethics.”
You never define ethics at all, you never
explicate the principles that a Buddhist or non-
Buddhist should understand and apply or how to
apply them in divergent situations. Until you
define what “ethics” is, your arguments against
“it” (whatever “it” is) are specious.

I will add that in many of your posts, you state

what ethic is NOT, but not what it IS. And you
vaguely describe a ‘Western ethics’, which you
reject, but you never define or explain what you
think a rigorous and appropriate ethics should be
and how to apply it.

Foster Ryan — Interesting points, especially
about Dzogchen.
Different versions of the dharma seem to match
all the different theories.
Yes; this is what much of Western academic

Buddhist ethics is about: matching up common
Western ethical theories with bits of Buddhism
that seem compatible. I mostly don’t see the
value in this, but whatever.
our own traditions and thinking really can fit
without conflict into Buddhist thought.
Yes; since Buddhism has so little to say about

ethics or politics, it’s compatible with anything.
practicing dzogchen type meditations you need
to have absorbed all of the different earlier
levels … and toggle between them
Yes; in upcoming posts I’ll suggest that this is

interestingly parallel to stage 5 in Kegan’s
framework. Stage 5 is meta-systematic; it’s the
ability to fluidly switch frameworks based on an
understanding of how they operate individually
and how they relate to each other and to reality.
This is also characteristic of postmodernity (as
Kegan points out).
I also think the parallels between Vajrayana and
Nietzsche are significant. Both took some
concept of “nobility” as fruitional. In both, that
concept is somewhat problematic, but I believe
it would be valuable to try to work out a notion
of “nobility” that would function for us now.

roughgarden — Almost nothing can be defined

with complete precision. Outside of math,
definitions are helpful only when there is a
dispute that turns out to be due to different
understandings of a term. So long as “we know
it when we see it,” a definition is generally
unhelpful.
I am assuming readers generally have an
unproblematic, common understanding of what
count as ethical/moral issues. I’ve borrowed
from Keown a particular distinction between
ethics and morals, and defined that in a way I
thought was clear. If it’s not clear, you could ask
specific questions and I can try to clarify. Or,
probably better, you could read Keown. I’m not
doing anything new with that.
you vaguely describe a ‘Western ethics’, which
you reject
There is not one Western ethics, but many

ethical theories and practices. I don’t exactly
“reject” any of them. I don’t think any are fully
adequate.
but you never define or explain what you think a
rigorous and appropriate ethics should be and
how to apply it.
I don’t intend to do what I’m guessing you want

here. My upcoming discussion of Kegan points
in this direction, but I think you will find it
unsatisfyingly abstract.
Overall: In this series, I’m assuming a greater
degree of sophistication on the part of readers
than I do in most of what I write. Throughout the
series, I’m taking for granted at minimum a
basic understanding of mainstream Western
moral philosophy. As the series progresses, it
will get increasingly conceptually difficult.
Unfortunately, the material just is complex and
abstract and unfamiliar. Short of writing a long
book, I won’t be able to carry all readers through
it.

Couple of thoughts on Leftist use of Buddhism

(or visa versa):
— Leftists are disproportionately atheists.
— Atheists in America are looked at with great
distrust and disgust.
— Presenting oneself as a Buddhist let’s a
Westerner (esp Americans) who has escaped
Christianity say they are not Christian and yet
still feel at least acceptable and ethical, as
opposed to admitting they are filthy atheists.
Thus “I’m Buddhist” became a comfortable
sheep clothing for some ex-Christians and some
natural atheists in a society that felt atheists
disgusting and horrible.
— So as a market technique (and for self-
deception), Leftists are wise to grab Buddhism.
And Buddhists are wise to grab leftist ideology.

Thus “I’m Buddhist” became a comfortable

sheep clothing for some ex-Christians and some
natural atheists
Yep! The page scheduled to appear on Monday
(“What is ‘Buddhist ethics’ for?”) expands on
this idea. Much of what it is for is to position
yourself as vaguely well-intentioned without
signing up for anything specific.
25. Lawrence Yang (@larryang) says:

David, what do you think about the Ashokan

edicts?
I’ve studied Yin Shun teachings, and attended
retreats with Bhikkhu Bodhi. I appreciate your
analysis (some of my fellow students, probably
not so much).
Another influential modern Chinese Buddhist
thinker, in addition to Taixu and Yin Shun, is
Xu Yun (Hsu Yun).
Speaking of Yin Shun, there’s the example of
his most prominent student, Cheng Yen. She
(another important point) founded Tzu Chi, the
largest Chinese-language and Buddhist NGO,
running hospitals, clinics, and disaster relief
around the globe. This activity was heavily
influenced by Western models – official
biographies mention her encounter with Roman
Catholic nuns. Additionally, Tzu Chi has
strongly embraced environmentalism.

what do you think about the Ashokan edicts?
I don’t know much about them. I have been

intending to learn more for several years, but it’s
never quite been “next on the list.”
Thanks for the information about Xu Yun and
Cheng Yen!
David: You used McMahon’s “The Making of

Buddhist Modernism” to critique Buddhist
ethics as a form of disguised Protestant ethics.
But your misrepresented his thesis because you
only presented one of the two contributing
influences. One is Protestantism, as you said, but
not conservative Christianity, rather it was
liberal, mystical Christianity.
The second contributing influence was
Romanticism, which McMahon said had a great
influence on a particular kind of Buddhist ethics
that rejected asceticism, rules and public morals
and placed the source of ethical authority within
“Nature” and the “primitive” or “natural spirit of
man.” In particular, Romanticism was deployed
against the plight of modern nihilism (see page
13 for a full description of Romanticism vs.
nihilism), which you wrote about in this blog.
That along with Scientific Rationalism and
Christian liberalism are the three great
influences on Buddhism modernism (see page
86 for exact quote).
You also failed to disclose that McMahon also
has a modernist critique of the particular form of
Buddhism that you practice: western tantra.
McMahon critiques western tantra as Global
Folk Buddhism, a post-modern form that
nonetheless shares the elements of global
modernity found in the other forms. From “The
Making of Buddhist Modernism”, to wit:
[quote]
Global Folk Buddhism
pp. 261-262
Toward this end of the continuum, we have a
new development, which I call global folk
Buddhism—the emerging “popular religion”
within Buddhist modernism. It is an admittedly
ironic category that confounds the usual
taxonomies of “great’ and “little” traditions and
“elite” and “popular” or “folk” traditions.
Scholars often describe popular traditions as the
relatively unsophisticated local religion of
common people. They contain more ritual than
complex doctrine, blend traditions liberally, and
employ magic and manipulation of material
objects for protection and other this-worldly
benefits. They may include fetishism and
witchcraft and are often disruptive of orthodoxy.
Popular traditions tend to be local, rooted in
particular places, versus elite traditions with
their universalizing impetus. The latter are
sophisticated, textual, philosophical, normative
and often imperial. They belong to the higher
social classes and offer themselves as universal,
true for all times and places.
Global folk Buddhism inverts certain staples of
the popular/elite distinction: its appeal is often to
the affluent; it is increasingly global, not tied to
a particular locality; and tends to dismiss local,
cultural and ethnic differences, instead
privileging unity. Rather than being embedded
in a particular cultural context, it is
disembedded, merging into the currents of
global discourse, commercial venues, popular
culture, and social practices of the electronic
age. This postmodern global folk Buddhism is a
unique form of lay Buddhism that has emerged
with the rise of globalization. It intermingles
with continually emerging and expanding
transnational popular culture, circulating
primarily through television, print, and the
internet. When elite Buddhist authors, work
within the systems of significance, cultural
practices, and commercial venues of this
globalizing popular culture, they enact a
variation of what Buddhist traditions have
always done when bringing the dharma to a new
place: they selectively and creatively re-present
elements of Buddhism using the local
vernacular, sometimes diluting it with local
custom, accommodating it to local dialects,
adapting it to local practices, and co-oping local
deities—while often themselves, in turn, being
shaped by all of these.
What is unique to the postmodern situation is
that the local vernacular customs, dialects, and
practices of global folk Buddhism are not local
—they are popular cultures. Their venues are the
popular book, lecture tour, concert stage,
website and CD. Practitioners of global folk
Buddhism, like those of local folk Buddhisms,
do not have a sophisticated understanding of
their own tradition and liberally mingle it with
their “native” customs—in this case various
forms of self-help, sports, commerce,
entertainment, drug use, fashion, corporate
culture, and other religious traditions and
subcultures (e.g. the “Dead Buddhist Society,”
for fans of Buddhism and the Grateful Dead;
Zen Management for corporate heads). Rather
than the elite occupation of dismantling the self
through rigorous meditation, global folk
Buddhism becomes an aid in the ever-ongoing
process of reflexive self-making and remaking
that, according to Giddens, constitutes self-
identity in the contemporary world (1991)
[unquote]

your misrepresented his thesis because you only
presented one of the two contributing influences.
I don’t see how I can have misrepresented him

in this post when I didn’t even mention him. (I
only cited him quoting Olcott.)
The second contributing influence was
Romanticism
I have written about McMahan’s explanation of

the influence of Romanticism on Buddhist
modernism many times in this blog. I don’t see
that omitting that from this particular post does
him a disservice.
McMahon critiques western tantra as Global
Folk Buddhism
No, he doesn’t. The passage you quote does not

mention Tantra; nor is it about Tantra implicitly
without mentioning it explicitly.
You also failed to disclose that McMahon also
has a modernist critique of the particular form of
Buddhism that you practice: western tantra.
If McMahan had done that, I probably would

have discussed it somewhere. (He didn’t.)
However, you seem to be suggesting that I am
somehow covering something up by “failing to
disclose.” Even if he had made such a critique, I
do not see that I would be in any way
responsible for commenting on it.
29. Alf says:

October 29, 2015 at 11:56 pm
Never really convinced that modern leftish

buddhism has anything to do with it’s supposed
purpose of enlightenment. If buddha was
enlightened in a monarchic, feudal world – what
difference does it make what your social context
is ? The argument could be that an enlightened
and sensitive outlook and upbringing gives
people less emotional baggage to have to work
on, a naturally clearer and lighter self – but is
that really true ?
A scientist could maybe mine data to see if more
people become enlightened in a modern context
than in a socially conservative one – but has
anyone done that ?
Same goes with all those other paths – Christian
and Islamic mysticism, shamanism etc., what
has modernism got to do with altered states and
enlightenment, really ?
30. richard baranov says:

December 24, 2015 at 7:04 am
You obviously know nothing about Buddhism at

all and, as a result, your suppositions are close to
being 100% wrong. In essence they are crackpot
nonsense.
31. loveofallwisdom says:
Man, haters gonna hate, eh?

David, there’s an awful lot I disagree with in
your interpretations, but as a PhD in Buddhist
studies I can say: don’t listen to this guy.

Thanks, Amod!
I have to admit that I really enjoy comments like
richard baranov’s, and have even encouraged
them a couple times (because I’m a bad person).
However, most readers probably find them less
entertaining than I do, so I restrain myself, and
sometimes delete them if they become
persistent.
33. D.C. Wijeratna says:
May 20, 2016 at 7:47 am
“How Asian Buddhism imported Western

ethics”
There is nothing to import and export. All
religions are one [Max Muller]. This can be seen
from the definition Buddhism in Oxford
Dictionaries:
Buddhism
A widespread Asian religion or philosophy,
founded by Siddartha Gautama in NE India in
the 5th century bc.
There are two major traditions, Theravada and
Mahayana.
The first statement is false. ‘Siddhartha
Gautama’ was not the founder of Buddhism.
The second statement is an oversimplification:
There are so many traditions today; by
definition, they are different. For an explanation
of tradition see World’s Religions, Ninian Smart
or Religious Worlds by William Paden.
According to Britannica, language of Theravada
is Pali; and language of Mahayana is Sanskrit,
There is a canon of Theravada called Tritpitaka.
What is the canon of Mahayana?
The Theravada canon is about 15000 printed
pages, in an unknown language which is called
Pali after Rhys Davids, who invented the
language.
This discussion will never end. After all belief
systems cannot be justified by argumentation.
I hope one of the participants will reply.
34. Ann Gleig says:

March 9, 2017 at 7:40 am
Hi David,
Hope this finds you well. Its been ages since we
talked. At any rate, I’m nearly finished with the
first draft of my book and I wanted to ask if I
could get a little information from you as I cover
your work in it. My question is:
(i) Do you have any data on traffic to the site–
amount and where from. Are there any posts that
stood out particularly in terms of traffic? Any
general patterns to add context?
Cheers,
Ann
Dr. Ann Gleig Assistant Professor of Religious
Studies Editor for Religious Studies Review
University of Central Florida (PSY 226) 4000
Central Florida Blvd Orlando, Fl 32816-1352
Why Westerners rebranded secular

ethics as “Buddhist” and
banned Tantra
Many of the Western creators of Consensus
Buddhism say in their autobiographies that they
went to Asia because they were disgusted with the
sex-and-drugs hedonism of hippie culture. Coming
from Protestant cultures, they were looking for a
system of self-restraint, but they had rejected
Christianity.
Traditional Buddhism is renunciate, not Protestant,
and renunciation is also unacceptable to Americans.
But Buddhist values had already been partially
replaced with Protestant ones in the Asian modernist
forms the Consensus founders encountered in the
1960s and 70s. They could, and did, continue that
process.
The lay precepts against sexual misconduct and
intoxication may have come at first as welcome
repudiations of hippie self-indulgence. However, as
we’ll see on the next page, they had to be loosened,
reinterpreted, and effectively negated to function in
America.
When the Consensus leaders returned to America

and began teaching in the late 1970s, they mainly
taught meditation. Their encounters with modern
Asian “Buddhist ethics” may have been personally
useful, but they rarely gave more than cursory
attention to it in their teaching, until the late 1980s.
Until the mid-1980s, vipassana was taught in the
West with much less emphasis on ethics than in
Southeast Asia. Since then, and particularly in the
United States, an increasing stress has been placed
on ethics and on the traditional Buddhist precepts for
the laity. The change was to a great extent a
response to both a wider cultural interest in ethics
and to a significant number of ethical transgressions
by Asian and Western teachers of Tibetan, Zen, and
Theravada Buddhism.1
I’m not sure what “a wider cultural interest in
ethics” means. However, most Baby Boomer
Buddhists by then had children, and some had jobs
with management responsibility. Both these turn the
mind to moral issues. Growing demand from their
Buddhist flock probably forced Consensus leaders
into another reinvention of “Buddhist ethics.” This
new system, addressing the specific moral issues of
the day, simply repackaged leftish secular morality
in Buddhist jargon. Suddenly Buddhism was
sexually liberal, feminist, and environmentally
conscious—ideas alien to even the most modern
Asian Theravada of the time. My next two posts will
examine this process, and its motivation, in greater
detail.
The “guru crisis” was the other trend that made it
urgent to invent a new Buddhist ethics. There was a
rash of egregious behavior by teachers of Eastern
religions, including prominent American-born
Buddhists. This provoked a hysterical moral panic.
However, probably something did need to be done.
The Protestant response to any moral problem
begins with soul-searching: might I, personally, do
something like that? How can I be sure I won’t?
What principles would restrain me? This led to a
new, more serious examination of ethics by
American Buddhist leaders.
Of course, it would have been convenient if
traditional Buddhist morality had something to say,
but mostly it didn’t. Vinaya would theoretically
prohibit sexual and financial abuse, but in practice it
didn’t. Also, few American teachers were monks or
nuns, so vinaya was irrelevant. Furthermore, perhaps
the most egregious case was Ösel Tendzin, who
taught Vajrayana, in which theoretically the
authority of teachers over students is unlimited.
The Consensus leaders promoted a new ethical code
for Buddhist teachers, notionally based on the lay
precepts. Its invention was guided by the Dalai
Lama, who convened an ecumenical Conference of
Western Buddhist Teachers in 1993. The event was
the de facto founding of the Consensus as a political
organization. The participants issued an “Open
Letter,” stating their consensus opinion on the ethics
of Buddhist teaching.
The Dalai Lama had his own agenda, which he did
not disclose to the Conference participants; at least
one (Stephen Batchelor) wrote later that he felt
deceived and used.2 Part of the Dalai Lama’s
motivation was to prohibit Western Buddhist Tantra.
The Open Letter (which he wrote much of, but—at
the last moment—did not sign) does exactly that. Its
central point is:
No matter what level of spiritual attainment a
teacher has, or claims to have reached, no person can
stand above the norms of ethical conduct. In order
for the Buddhadharma not to be brought into
disrepute and to avoid harm to students and teachers,
it is necessary that all teachers at least live by the
five lay precepts.
This is incompatible with Buddhist Tantra, in which
it is critical that not only teachers, but also students,
explicitly vow to violate the precepts.
A clear example is the samaya vow to drink alcohol
in tsok. Although alcohol has a specific tantric mind-
altering role, the function of the vow is also an
unambiguous, in-your-face rejection of the precepts
(and vinaya) as a whole. All tantrikas also vow to
kill people when that is the right thing to do; and so
on for the other precepts. Obviously the Dalai Lama
understood perfectly that the Letter prohibited
Tantra, even if some of the Westerners who signed it
may not have.
Thus, in the West, Buddhist Tantra was banned
specifically in the name of “Buddhist ethics.” (Now
one reason I am writing about Buddhist ethics comes
into focus!)
Of course, few Consensus teachers even attempt or
pretend to live by the lay precepts. As we’ll see on
the next page, the precepts contradict current secular
morality, so they are not part of “Buddhist ethics”—
not without radical reinterpretation, anyway.
But for Tantrikas, violation of the precepts is a
fundamental point of principle, not just weaseling.
An upcoming page discusses several contradictions
between Buddhist Tantra and “Buddhist ethics,” i.e.
leftish secular morality. These contributed to the
Consensus’s motivation for suppressing modern
Western Tantra. I will sketch reasons I think Tantra
is ethically right on these points, and leftish secular
morality is wrong.
1. Gil Fronsdal, “Insight Meditation in the United

States: Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of
Happiness, 1998. See also the discussion in his
“Virtues without Rules“, 2002.
2. Stephen Batchelor, Confession of a Buddhist
Atheist, pp. 204-5.
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2015Categories Consensus Buddhism, Reinventing
Buddhist TantraTags Buddhism, Buddhist teachers,
Dalai Lama, ethics, lay precepts, Protestant
Buddhism, samaya, tantra, Western Buddhism
19 thoughts on “Why Westerners
rebranded secular ethics as
“Buddhist” and banned Tantra”
I suspect that the Tibetans and ancient indian

Buddhists may have had some of the same
issues, hence the famous Padmasambhava quote,
here quoted by Khenpo Namdrol “My view is
more vast than the sky, but my conduct is as fine
as the smallest grain of sand.” We should not
abandon the most subtle teachings on karma, the
law of cause and effect. Following this advice,
the gurus of the past also held the view that was
greater than the sky, but followed the conduct
prescribed by the teachings on cause and
effect.”. As one rises through the vehicles one
should not outwardly abandon the earlier
vehicles for a number of reasons, clearly
illustrated by the messes caused when this
principle is abandoned. The more one is
representing a formal Buddhism the more one
must outwardly abide by these principles. The
more one rises through the vehicles and the
more one lives as a secret yogi the more one
may live by the higher principles. A dzogchen
yogi should be indistinguishable from a regular
person or practitioner, unless one is clearly a
crazy wisdom yogi, or a chodpa in those
societies and everybody knows what you are up
to, but that is not without its risks. This is one of
the reasons for the practices to be secret and that
they should not be openly discussed as this
brings a number of risks for everybody involved.
If one can not abide by these.guidelines then it is
might be best for one not to be given the
opportunity to ruin ones life and the reputation
of ones religious community. In one sense the
Dalai Lama’s proscription against tantra may
have been shrewd. If Tantra is outwardly banned
then its practitioners will have to be more
secretive about it, as they should have been, for
good reasons. If nobody suspects that you are a
tantric then you won’t be being watched and
publicly mocked, as the community can say “oh,
we don’t do that stuff, we follow this mahayana
stuff. We don’t know what you’re talking
about”. Unfortunately, throwing out Tantra was
going way too far. The Dalai Lama himself
comes from a heavily Mahayana sutric tradition
of Tantra so it is no surprise where he would put
his emphasis. Still, what may be a little crazy
about this idea is that I personally think that
tantra and dzogchen/mahamudra (the inner view
of tantra, really) is the view most suitable for the
modern world on many levels. I can’t really see
the appeal of the lower vehicles except as truly
necessary developmental tools. Still, they are not
places to stop. However, if one has not gotten
these lessons elsewhere then they are absolutely
necessary developmental exercises. I often,
however, run into plenty of people who shake
their head at tantra and say that that tantra stuff
is silly, degenerate, and full of useless ritual and
superstition. Then they will often state a view of
the world that belongs to tantra and dzogchen/
mahamudra, while at the same time promoting
the practices and teachings that stand in
complete opposition to it. A lot of westerners
really need to do some more thinking and
reading. Of course very few of them have ever
actually read many of these texts. BTW, I like
your idea of the goal being the development of
Nobility, that sounds about right, and suitably
undegenerate in orientation- a positive vision
instead of the typical view of tantra as the
rejection of norms.

Yes, I agree with all that.

The issue of secrecy in tantra is extremely
complicated; I wrote a little about it here.
Overall, I believe that keeping tantra secret at
this point is likely to cause its extinction.
However, I respect the view of those who say it
should remain secret, and am careful not to
reveal publicly anything that is not already in the
open literature.
I think that the Dalai Lama’s course of action
was probably justifiable given his
(mis)understanding of the political situation at
the time. I don’t condemn him for it, although I
wish things had gone differently.
I personally think that tantra and dzogchen/
mahamudra (the inner view of tantra, really) is
the view most suitable for the modern world on
many levels.
Yes, that’s the central point of this blog. I’m not

sure how effectively I’m communicating it, but I
keep trying :-)
Ah yes, Tsok — memory lane. It was my

questioning comments on that post, that caused
Aro Tantrist Buddhists to reject my application
to study with their teacher. How dare I question
tantra ethical techniques.
It was ironic, that when I met practicing tantrists
in person I found several bad mouthing each
other’s behavior during the ritual that flouts the
traditional Buddhist morality against nudity — a
supposedly liberating practice. Yet these same
people condemned my doubts and way of
expressing my doubts.
In the end, one could declare Tantric ethical
systems as higher than liberal leftist ethics, but
for me, this is an empirical claim. No matter
how reasonable something sounds, I want it
tested over time. We should be able to test if
people change differently operating
(supposedly) under different systems. My
suspicion is that they don’t. But I have no more
evidence there than those claim otherwise. —
Remember the studies showing the Ethic
Professors act no differently than us
unsophisticated folks.

when I met practicing tantrists in person I found

several bad mouthing each other’s behavior
That is a violation of samaya (tantric vows). Of

course, it does happen; people taking vows
doesn’t guarantee they’ll keep them consistently
(or at all).
one could declare Tantric ethical systems as
higher than liberal leftist ethics
As I said a couple of posts ago, I don’t think

samaya is an ethical system at all, much less one
that is higher than Western liberal ethics. It has
some structurally interesting features that I’ll
draw out in a post scheduled for about two
weeks from now, though.
this is an empirical claim. No matter how
reasonable something sounds, I want it tested
over time. We should be able to test if people
change differently operating (supposedly) under
different systems.
I agree! As far as I know, there’s been very little

empirical study of the effects of teaching ethics
of any sort. I might be wrong, though. If anyone
knows of anything, I’d love to hear about it!
Concerning your contention that the Insight

Meditation Society has imposed a Consensus
Buddhism on the West and by extension,
Buddhists all over the world; let’s look at the
numbers:
According to the IMS website, 20,000 people
receive some sort of IMS publication: email,
newsletter, books.
IMS can only accommodate about 3,000 people
annually in their North American retreat and
study centres.
Buddhists worldwide: approx. 500 million
Buddhists as percentage of world population: 7
to 8 percent
China has the largest population of Buddhists in
raw numbers, approx. 244 million or about 18%
of its population. Most Chinese Buddhists
practice Mahayana or Chan Buddhism. Japan
has either 45 or 85 million Buddhists (Pew vs.
ARDA), either 36 or 67% of its population.
Most Japanese Buddhists are Mahayana.
The countries with the highest percentages of
Buddhism per population are all Theravada
countries (except Bhutan and Mongolia:
Vajrayana), 50% or higher: Cambodia, Thailand,
Myanmar-Burma, Sri Lanka, Laos.
US has just under 4 million Buddhists, or 1.3
percent
UK has 196,000 Buddhists, or 0.4 percent.
Canada as 500,000 Buddhists, or 1.5 percent
Australia: 467,0000 or 2.1 percent
North America: 1.1 percent
Europe: 0.2 percent
According to a demographic analysis reported
by Peter Harvey (2013):
• Eastern Buddhism (Mahayana) has 360 million
adherents;
• Southern Buddhism (Theravada) has 150
million adherents; and
• Northern Buddhism (Vajrayana) has 18.2
million adherents.
• Seven million additional Buddhists are found
outside of Asia.
So of the 7 million Buddhists found outside of
Asia, twenty-thousand have some connection to
Insight Meditation Society, even if it’s no more
than receiving emails from the organization.
By contrast, 378 million have no connection
with any Theravada tradition.
Of the 150 million who practice in a Theravada
tradition, only twenty-thousand are even
casually connected to Insight Meditation
Society, that is, 0.013%, barely a blip on a
global scale.
So while I appreciate the disproportionate power
that certain spokespersons from IMS might
have, at 0.013 percent of Buddhists, in no way
do they represent a worldwide consensus of
what Buddhism is about.
The 150 million Theravada Buddhists might
vigorously disagree with the idea that the Insight
Meditation Society resembles or represents their
religious practice in any way. I currently
practice in a Theravada tradition from Sri Lanka,
taught by Sinhalese monks, in which the main
meditation practice is not vipassana, but metta
bhavana. Being a sangha of immigrants from Sri
Lanka, it bears little resemblance to the white
wealthy western converts of the Insight
Meditation Society, either in culture or practice.
Correction: 20,000 is 0.0000133% of

150,000,000 of Theravada Buddhists; and
0.00028571% of 7,000,000 Buddhists “outside
of Asia”. I never was very good at math.

your contention that the Insight Meditation

Society has imposed a Consensus Buddhism on
the West and by extension, Buddhists all over
the world
You invented that. I never said any such thing.

Please be more careful!
I have definitely not said anywhere that the
Consensus has imposed anything on the non-
Western world. I have said in several places that
contemporary Asian Buddhism is mostly
extremely different from the Consensus. I have
said in several places that the Consensus is
mainly an American phenomenon, not even
“Western.” It does have some influence in other
Western countries, but the modernist Buddhisms
of other Western countries are somewhat
different. I have said in several places that the
Consensus is far from a majority of even
American Buddhists. Most American Buddhists
are ethnically Asian and practiced Buddhisms
they imported with them, which are very
different from the Consensus.
The Consensus dominates white American
middle-class Buddhism. (Or did—I think it’s
fizzling now.) That gives it cultural significance
out of proportion to the number of its followers.
The number of Consensus followers is much
larger than the number of people who attend
IMS programs or who are on their membership
roll. Elsewhere, I’ve estimated that it’s about a
million, but that number is necessarily nebulous
because it’s not well-defined who counts as a
follower. Basically I’m counting the number of
people who read books by the Consensus leaders
and think of themselves as aligned with that
view. It includes, for instance, people who have
done an MBSR course, read a couple of Jack
Kornfield books, and meditate occasionally. A
million is probably a reasonable estimate,
although it could be off by a factor of three, or
possibly even ten.
Total Buddhists in US, UK, Canada, Australia,

(i.e. predominantly white, english-speaking
countries): roughly 5 million. How many of
these are Insight or some western version of
Theravada? You’re saying one million or more
are somehow “influenced” by or aligned with
Consensus Buddhism. But you do not present
any kind of rigorous statistical model for how
you arrived at the one million. One million X
“factor of 3” equals 3 million, more than half of
the Buddhists in said countries, many of whom
are immigrants and not the “Consensus” profile.
One million X “factor of 10” equals twice as
Buddhists than currently exist in said countries,
10 million vs. 5 million.
What datasets did you use? What is your method
of sampling? Are you over-counting, by
counting all those who get emails from IMS +
read a Jack Cornfield book + attended an MBSR
retreat, who might be the same people? I really
appreciate sociological analysis of religious
phenomena, but it has to be supported by
empirical evidence.

You’re saying one million or more

No, I said one million to within a factor of three,
or ten. That might be as little as 100,000.
What datasets did you use? What is your method
of sampling?
I said it was “a reasonable estimate.”

If you explain why you think the precise number
matters, I can try to defend or revise my
estimate. So far, I haven’t understood what your
point is (other than maybe “YOU GOT
SOMETHING WRONG!!1!” which isn’t
interesting since it’s a trivial point).

Because you’ve create this boogeyman called

“Consensus Buddhism” which is supposed to
have taken over Western Buddhist practice and
suppressed everything else, and imposed this
silly thing called “western ethics” on everybody.
But when you actually look at the numbers of
people who might be involved with this
“consensus buddhism” it’s a vanishingly small
number of people, less than 100,000, if that,
compared with the 7 million Buddhists “outside
of Asia”, the 150 million Theravadins, and the
380 million Mahayana/Vajra practitioners.
Conclusion: who cares what they think? who
gives a shit? They don’t represent me as a
western Buddhist. In fact, like you, I am very
critical of what they teach. And furthermore,
their ethical or moral positions are far better
explained as a function of CLASS STATUS
than it is by some other cultural factor, e.g.
Californian, feminist, etc. I agree with you that
they use Buddhism to wave some kind of flag
showing that they belong to this exclusive
group, but they don’t take any effective action
based on their supposed ethics or morals. Such
action requires taking political risks, tolerating
conflict, fomenting dissent and being “not nice.”
Instead, they actually use Buddhism to exempt
themselves from amy moral, ethical or social
responsibility.

who cares what they think?
I do, because they suppressed the form of

Buddhism I happen to care about. (Among other
misdeeds.) If you don’t care about modern
Buddhist tantra, this whole critique may be
irrelevant for you. (Or, it may be relevant in
some other way.)
If you find it irrelevant to your concerns, I
suggest you stop reading it, instead of
complaining about it.
they don’t take any effective action based on
their supposed ethics or morals.
Yes; on that, we agree strongly!

Why do you want tantra to be included in

“Mindfulness Mayo?” As I asked you before, do
you want something as complex and nuanced as
Tantra to be homogenized into a marketable
product like “consensus Buddhism”? If I were a
tantra practitioner, I would be glad that they left
my form of practice out of that mush.

Why do you want tantra to be included in

“Mindfulness Mayo?”
I don’t. I never said I did.

Please stop arguing with things I haven’t said
and complaining about things I haven’t written.
Can I suggest you take a couple days out to stop
posting comments here?

David, there seems to be an East Coast / West

Coast thing happening here. I was chatting with
Foster Ryan, who is actually a friend of mine,
originally from New England. He was saying
that in Los Angeles, he confronts the
“Consensus” all the time. People talk about it, it
seems to infect conversations about Buddhism in
every sector. This is apparently a West Coast
problem. I live on the East Coast, and I don’t
mean Boston. I mean Atlantic Canada, Halifax,
Nova Scotia. You have to believe me when I tell
I have never heard anyone talk about a
“consensus” here. I have never read “One
Dharma” or Jack Kornfield’s books, and I don’t
know anyone who has. The only “consensus” is
the near total domination of Shambhala, which
is Vajra. Their international headquarters is here,
and they own huge amounts of property all over
the island. People on the East Coast are
Traditionalists. The Zen is really strict Soto Zen,
none of this Brad Warner stuff. Theravada is an
Asian immigrant form, with no trace of West
Coast pop-psychology. Even East Coast IMS is
traditional. The Barre Centre in Massachusetts
split with the West Coast IMS precisely because
of their rejection of the “consensus”. They
insisted on a traditional Thai Forest practice. So
that’s why I didn’t understand this frustration
with the “Consensus” and I didn’t even know
what it was—I have never experienced it here.
But you should also understand that the
“Consensus” doesn’t hold everywhere. It’s a
California thing.
15. Pingback: Anti-appropriation culturelle

16. 1414 says:
From my perspective, buddhism has no ground

for moral values at all. When the underlying
principle is that everything is emptiness, then
everything that comes from this notion is
irelevant. So everything you will count as a
buddhist morality will come from someone
somwhere saying “I think it should be like this”.
And this will work to the extent, that if someone
actualy practice, at some point it will be seen
through and abandoned(?).
In Christianity, everything springs from the
notion that there is an unique soul in everyone.
This is a solid base (even if false, becouse it is
unsolvable) – becouse it is creating a pernament
value, to build morality on.

Yes; in fact the next post in this Buddhist ethics

series will be about this. If you take the
Mahayana view of emptiness seriously, you end
up with ethical nihilism. Mahayana philosophers
have admitted that this is a problem pretty much
from the beginning, and have proposed various
solutions based on the “two truths” doctrine.
(There’s a recent book about this, Moonpaths,
that looks excellent.) It’s pretty clear that none
of those solutions work, and that no solution can
work within the Mahayana framework.
On the other hand, all attempts to ground ethics
in some Cosmic Ordering Principle (such as
God) are eternalistic, and wind up with all the
problems of eternalism.
I will suggest that this can be resolved in a
Dzogchen view, which understands emptiness
and form to be inseparable. Ethics are
necessarily both nebulous and patterned.
18. Concerned Tantrika says:
Hi David, this revelation came as a tremendous

shock to me. To me the DL was always a ‘good
guy’; I had no idea he was trying to kill Tantra.
The best way to lose a tradition is to make it
secret, and that is effectively what he did by his
decree. Of course, then the westerner ‘buddhists’
went and formed a secret vigilante group to
track and harass suspected Tantrikas. I have
been a Tantrik since birth; my mom was one of
the first practicing Tantra in the west. I have
been on the receiving end of online abuse, death
threats, even physical violence orchestrated by
that group. I have evidence to back up these
allegations. Would like to consult with you on
an appropriate course of action.

Hi…. Well, I think the DL was doing what he

thought was right. Coming shortly after the Ösel
Tendzin disaster, it seemed reasonable. There
were also internal considerations of Tibetan
religious politics, which are extremely
complicated and usually quite nasty.
Some younger Tibetan lamas have figured out
what you say—that tantra will die out if it is
hidden—and they are more willing to teach it.
This is a positive development. I think once the
last of the exile lamas who were educated in
Tibet die—which can’t be more than another
decade—things will open up a lot. But it may be
too late.
I have been on the receiving end of online abuse,
death threats, even physical violence
orchestrated by that group. I have evidence to
back up these allegations. Would like to consult
with you on an appropriate course of action.
Well… I have no expertise in this area. If threats

are credible and you know who they are coming
from, you can go to the police. Otherwise,
maybe it’s something everyone just has to live
with nowadays. (I wrote about online Buddhist
death threats a couple years ago.)
FTFY Buddhist ethics
Monkey explains why he lives in an underworld, in

Journey to the West
Traditional Buddhist morality is obviously wrong.
But the Buddha was enlightened, and Buddhism is
the correct religion; so it seems that, due to some
minor mistake, the tradition does not represent the
true Buddhist ethics.
Since we know what is ethically correct—and
Buddha would surely agree!—we can fix it for him.
That is the principle of FTFY Buddhist ethics.
[Note to future historians: “FTFY” is 2015 internet
slang for “fixed that for you.”]
Current “Buddhist ethics” is identical to current
Western leftish secular ethics. How can Buddhist
leaders pretend that it has anything to do with
Buddhism? How can traditional Buddhist moral
teachings be explained away? FTFY is the main
rhetorical strategy.
FTFY ethics explains what the Buddha would have
said about something he didn’t discuss. For example,
we can easily see that he would have approved of
homosexuality. Also, he certainly would have
supported intellectual property ownership.
Also, the Buddha got many things wrong, for
various excusable reasons. However, we know what
he should have said. For example, he surely knew
slavery was wrong. However, he had to work within
the constraints of the existing regime, so he had to
endorse it anyway due to politics. How fortunate that
we can fix that for him!
How to fix Buddhist ethics
“Compassion” is the essential tool of FTFY
Buddhist ethics. “Buddhist ethics says
compassionate motivation is the important thing, and
we derive everything from that, so our ethics is
Buddhist.” Compassion is wonderfully subjective, so
you can justify anything using it—including torture
and genocide, as Buddhist authorities sometimes
have.
FTFY Buddhist sermons generally go like this:
1. Buddhism says we should be compassionate.
2. Here are some holy quotes about how important
compassion is.
3. Now consider this hot-button Western ethical
issue: (abortion, income inequality, transphobia,
GMOs, whatever).
4. Clearly, the compassionate approach to this
issue is [the leftish secular opinion].
5. Since Buddhism is a religion of compassion, we
can see that the Buddhist ethical approach to
this is [the leftish secular opinion].
6. Therefore, [the leftish secular opinion].
7. Because Buddhism is right.
8. We know it is right because [the leftish secular
opinion] is compassionate, and Buddhism
endorses [the leftish secular opinion], as I
explained.
9. Which proves that Buddhism is a religion of
compassion, and therefore right.
10. Here’s a Dalai Lama quote. It’s not about
this issue, but you must agree he’s extremely
compassionate.
This is perfectly legitimate, historically. The
tradition of putting your own words in the Buddha’s
mouth goes back a couple thousand years at least.
But if you are going to put the whole of
contemporary secular morality in his mouth, why
bother?
(I’ll answer that in the next post.)
How Consensus Buddhist leaders fixed

the lay precepts
Consensus “Buddhist ethics” pretends to be based on
the first five lay precepts, plus the paramitas. (It
ignores the other five lay precepts, and the other
quasi-moral systems, and the Sigalovada.)
The paramitas are so vague that they can be safely
held as theoretical ideals with little practical
consequence. The precepts, however, are
incompatible with contemporary American morality,
so they had to be radically loosened, replaced, and/or
ignored in practice.
Loosening
The following quotes are from Gil Fronsdal’s
“Virtues without Rules,” about ethical teaching in
the Insight Meditation Society, with some phrases
omitted for concision:
[The precepts] are not to be understood as strict or
absolute rules. Goldstein states: “The precepts are
not taken as commandments but are followed for the
effect they have on our quality of life. There is not a
sense of imposition at all because they are natural
expressions of a clear mind.” Kornfield insists that
the precepts are “not given as absolute
commandments.” And Salzberg writes, “In
Buddhism morality does not mean a forced or
puritanical abiding by rules,” and observes that the
five precepts “are not intended to be put forth as
draconian rules.”
The teachers’ insistence that the precepts are not
commandments is also reflected in the seeming
reluctance to apply them specifically as rules of
restraint with any particularity. For example, in
explaining the first precepts, Salzberg recommends
the avoidance of killing. While this may be her
implied intent, what she explicitly recommends is
using the precept as a reflection on the “oneness of
life.” In discussing the precept not to lie, she doesn’t
recommend the avoidance of lying but rather the
more vague “attempt not to lie.” And in discussing
the fifth precept, she writes about the usefulness of
temporarily “experimenting” with avoiding
intoxicants. Salzberg and other teachers who explain
the precepts do so mostly in general terms, focusing
on principles behind them, such as non-harming and
a sense of interconnection.
What’s important is not what you do (the traditional
point of the precepts), but that you examine your
conscience carefully, and maintain an appropriately
pious attitude. “In America the precepts are
generally defined in terms of intention, rather than in
terms of action.”1 This is characteristic of Protestant
morality.
Replacing
Since the lay precepts are contrary to Western
secular morals, “Buddhist ethics” fixes them by
explicit rewriting.
American teachers more often describe the positive
aspect of skillful conduct, what is to be cultivated.
Steven Armstrong, for instance, gives a very
flexible, though inclusive, rendition of the five
precepts: “a commitment to not harming,” “a
commitment to sharing,” “making and keeping clear
relationships,” “speaking carefully: the power of
intention,” and “keeping the mind clear.”2
“Not killing” is a nice idea in theory, but:
At IMS, when issues such as a cockroach infestation
arise, the teachers are not innocent of the decision to
use poison… Causing an abortion is considered
[traditionally] to amount to killing a human being.
This formulation is consistent with the Theravādin
understanding of consciousness and rebirth, but what
does it mean for American laywomen trying to
maintain the precepts?3
So Spirit Rock redefines the first precept as
struggling to attain the correct mental attitude, the
essence of Protestant ethical practice:
In undertaking this precept we acknowledge the
interconnection of all beings and our respect for all
life. We agree to refine our understanding of not
killing and nonharming in all our actions. We seek
to understand the implication of this precept in such
difficult areas as abortion, euthanasia, and the killing
of pets. While some of us recommend
vegetarianism, and others do not, we all commit
ourselves to fulfilling this precept in the spirit of
reverence for life.
As for sex and drugs:
The IMS community generally gives the
proscriptions against sexual misconduct and
intoxicants much less scope and force than do
Burmese renditions… As one teacher has put it,
“Buddhists are required to avoid sexual misconduct,
but it is not clear what this means in California.”4
[Traditional Burmese teacher] U Pandita does not
compromise on the fifth precept.5 “Even in small
amounts, intoxicating substances can make us less
sensitive, more easily swayed by gross motivations
of anger and greed. Some people defend the use of
drugs and alcohol, saying that these substances are
not so bad. On the contrary, they are very
dangerous…” While I do not think that any of the
senior teachers at IMS would advocate alcohol as a
tool for awakening, for most of them it would be
rather hypocritical to proscribe moderate social
drinking as totally incompatible with dedicated
practice.6
These revisions are consistent with the Protestant
approach. Consensus Buddhism does not
recommend renunciation (giving up all sense
pleasures). Instead, it has an “ethics of
mindfulness” (a rebranding of Protestant soul-
searching). “Mindfulness” includes working to be
satisfied with a moderate amount, simplicity,
modesty, and all-around niceness.
Here’s Thich Nhat Hanh’s rewrite of the fifth
precept:
Aware of the suffering caused by unmindful
consumption, I vow to cultivate good health, both
physical and mental, for myself, my family and my
society, by practicing mindful eating, drinking, and
consuming. I vow to ingest only items that preserve
peace, well-being, and joy in my body, in my
consciousness, and in the collective body and
consciousness of my family and society. I am
determined not to use alcohol or any other
intoxicant, or to ingest foods or other items that
contain toxins, such as certain TV programs,
magazines, books, films, and conversations. I am
aware that to damage my body or my consciousness
with these poisons is to betray my ancestors, my
parents, my society, and future generations. I will
work to transform violence, fear, anger, and
confusion in myself and in society by practicing a
diet for myself and for society. I understand that a
proper diet is crucial for self-transformation and for
the transformation of society.
This is interestingly parallel to Dharmapala’s
wholesale importation of then-current Western
secular morality to provide “Buddhist ethical” norms
for forks and buses. Healthy eating is a central
commandment of current secular morality; now it’s
Buddhist! The Buddha probably didn’t have an
opinion about TV programs; FTFY.
Ignoring
For traditional Theravada, morality consists in
submitting to an objective code of prohibitions. For
the Consensus, it’s a matter of being authentic to
your True Self, which is spontaneously virtuous.
Jack Kornfield:
“We use the form of rules until virtue becomes
natural. Then from the wisdom of the silent mind
true spontaneous virtue arises.” Elsewhere he writes,
“Our actions come out of a spontaneous compassion
and our innate wisdom can direct life from our
heart.” The implication of the teaching that a person
with spiritually developed character and insight will
naturally act ethically is that, for such a person, the
precepts themselves become unnecessary.7
“Trust your feelings, Luke!” Thanissaro Bikkhu, a
more traditional American Theravada teacher,
strongly opposes this approach. In “Romancing the
Buddha,” a major influence on my understanding of
modern Buddhism, he suggests that the idea derives
from German Romanticism, not any Buddhist
source.8
On the previous page, I wrote “few Western
Buddhist teachers even attempt or pretend to live by
the lay precepts.” I am not accusing them of
hypocrisy in failing to live up to their chosen ethical
system. I am accusing them of duplicity in
pretending that the ethical system they have chosen
is Buddhist.
1. Strong Roots, p. 140.
3. Strong Roots, pp. 140-1.
5. Bikkhu Bodhi also wrote a fine article pointing
out the importance of the fifth precept forbidding
the drinking of any amount of alcohol.
7. Quoted in “Virtues without rules,” p. 12.
8. Although I think he’s importantly right about
Romantic influence on Consensus Buddhism,
I’m not sure Romanticism is the only source of
“spontaneously compassionate action.” That is a
principle of Dzogchen (“lhündrüp”), and
Kornfield has studied Dzogchen extensively.
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Related

within the left…
societies: similar to what you'd find in Medieval
often cruel. In Europe, Enlightenment rationalism
enabled smart people to say "wait,…
“Buddhist ethics” is not Buddhist ethics
So-called “Buddhist ethics” is just contemporary

American leftish secular morality.

Author David ChapmanPosted on October 2,
Buddhism, ethics, lay precepts
33 thoughts on “FTFY Buddhist
ethics”
1. semnyisun says:
Great stuff. I thought the lay precepts were

originally intended to guard against spider bites,
AIDS, and alien space rapes. She gets upset if
you fuck around with it too much. Oh the horror
indeed.
2. antheahawdon says:
I have a modified version of the FTFY morality,

which I’ve usually seen in Christians:
1) I am a reasonably good person.
2) I believe X about current social issue
3) Jesus was a super-good person
4) Jesus would want X about current social
issue.
It’s simple, efficient and applicable to both left
and right wing Christians.

Well said. I can see the same self-deception in

other religions — putting a holy spin on what
you intend to do anyway.
Again, you have said what Buddhist ethics is

NOT. You haven’t yet said what it IS. We’re
just talking circles around something that hasn’t
been carefully defined yet, a specious argument.
I mean today, you haven’t defined ‘ETHICS’ at

all, much less Buddhist ethics. (I do wish there
was some way to edit comments.) Until you
fully explicate what you mean by “ethics”, the
principles, the generation of those principles,
their justifications and how they apply in various
situations, this whole argument is a sham.

antheahawdon — Nicely put! My version was

probably unnecessarily complicated.
Sabio — Thanks!
roughgarden — I am assuming readers have a
general basic understanding of Western ethical
theory. This blog series takes that for granted. I
use standard ethical terms with their standard
meanings.
If you are unfamiliar with the basics of Western
ethics, the Wikipedia article is a pretty good
introduction. It starts with a section on
definitions, which might answer your questions.
The next section, on “normative ethics,”
explains what sorts of principles Western ethical
theories bring to bear on moral questions.
I am not going to explain basic Western ethical
theory because it’s common knowledge that can
be found easily elsewhere.

Roughgarden isn’t he saying that there is no

actual Buddhist ethics system, only a tradition of
precepts. and that we have been hustled and told
that our own ethics system is the Buddhist ethics
system. I ordered and am now reading “Buddhist
Ethics: A very short introduction” by Damien
Keown, and in there he is discussing what
Buddhist ethics could be. Keown mentions a
more complete text by Peter Harvey “Buddhist
Ethics: Foundations, Values, and Issues”. He is
also making the point that if people realized the
actual values behind their Consensus Buddhist
tradition that they wouldn’t like it; and if many
of the people who are pushing this modern
secular mindfulness approach thought about it
and examined tantric and dzogchen approaches
then they would realize that these are the
approaches that would best suit them. Also, we
should all be clear about what these traditions
are actually teaching and not just making up our
own theory about them. If we did that then we
could choose more carefully which tradition we
followed and then update that tradition’s
presentation as needed without having to change
any of their basics- the change would more
likely be a modification of presentation without
messing with the machine itself, which probably
isn’t wise- but anyway, we should at least be
clear about what’s actually going on.

there is no actual Buddhist ethics system, only a

tradition of precepts. and that we have been
hustled and told that our own ethics system is
the Buddhist ethics system.
Thanks, yes, that’s a clear summary!

a more complete text by Peter Harvey “Buddhist
Ethics: Foundations, Values, and Issues”.
I got this and read quite a lot of it. I can’t really

recommend it; it’s not bad but it mostly covers
the same ground as Keown with a lot more
words.
I agree with the rest of what you said as well!
9. semnyisun says:
It seems kind of hard not to just make stuff up,

being for the most part a secular leftish person as
well as a Buddhist is it any wonder we reinvent
the ethics to fit with the spirit of the times. Still
there is the deeper tantric logic of the charnel
ground which makes our shifting consensus
moralizing look pretty transparent and pathetic.
Sometimes if faced with an ethical dilemma I
think “What would Yeshe Tsogyal do?”.
Sell weapons to Saudi Arabia? Who knows?
http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canada-
election-2015-saudi-arabia-neil-
macdonald-1.3251239
10. jayarava says:

The definitions section of the Wiki page on

ethics carries a warning “The neutrality of this
section is disputed.” How can this be a good
introduction to the subject? It also raises many
questions that aren’t addressed by these essay –
we seem to be saying that because traditional
Buddhism is usually presented as normative
ethics, for example, that it has no meta-ethics.
But I’m certainly aware of metaethical
discussions.
I’m really not convinced by this essay that
modern attempts to identify ethical principles
and apply them, amounts to what you say it
does. The examples used don’t really establish
the points you claim they do. Apparently your
assumptions about what readers will understand
and know about goes far beyond the terminology
of moral philosophy. I think your underlying
(and as yet unspoken) agenda shows here more
than ever and it weakens your argument. While I
appreciate the polemical tone of the essays
generally, I think here you let yourself get
carried away with mockery. It’s an old Buddhist
rhetorical technique deriding the opposition
before making a positive alternative proposition,
but as with historical precedents one struggles to
recognise the opposition in the caricature. And I
no longer seem to be amongst the intended
audience – it’s become a smug incrowd
sniggering at the the mainstream affair. As
always this aspect of your writing is a real turn
off for me.
very entertaining and enjoyable reading, though

I think it has some weaknesses. Hopefully I will
find some time later to talk about some issues
with which I have about the post.

jayarava // “It’s an old Buddhist rhetorical

technique deriding the opposition before making
a positive alternative proposition”
deriding the opposition before making a positive
alternative proposition, is it a distinctively
Buddhist rhetorical technique? I expect that you
probably don’t think so. Anyway, your
statement made me smile.

jayarava — Yes, I’m sure there’s a better

introduction to Western ethics available. Could
you suggest one for roughgarden? I chose the
Wiki page just because it was the first thing I
thought of, and it does cover the necessary
points.
It also raises many questions that aren’t
addressed by these essays
Sure. This series is not meant to include a

general discussion of the ways Western ethical
theory can be brought to bear on Buddhist
thought. Keown’s and Harvey’s books are good
surveys of that.
My overall subject is “Buddhist ethics” as taught
and practiced in contemporary Western
Buddhism; and I’m making a particular analysis
of it. I won’t discuss anything not relevant to
that analysis, because it is quite long enough
(~50,000 words) as it is!
The analysis is:
1. “Buddhist ethics” is simply contemporary
secular ethics. There is no difference
between them, and “Buddhist ethics” has no
basis in tradition. (This page completes that
part of the analysis.)
2. The reason for claiming that it’s something
other than secular ethics is that this pretense
was an effective marketing strategy—for the
religion and for individuals—in the 1990s.
(That’s the next post.) It’s no longer
effective, so the Consensus no longer has a
coherent selling proposition. (Post after
that.)
3. The version of secular ethics taught by the
Consensus is simplistic (“stage 3”). More
sophisticated secular ethical approaches are
available. Future Buddhisms could
incorporate them. I advocate doing so.
(Remainder of series.)
14. I’m really not convinced by this essay that
modern attempts to identify ethical principles
and apply them, amounts to what you say it
does.
This essay isn’t about that, at all! Something I

wrote must have been unclear. If you point out
what it was, I can try to fix it!
This essay is about the way Western Buddhist
teachers disguise contemporary secular morality
as Buddhist. There’s two parts to that:
1. Contemporary morality has to be justified in
“Buddhist” terms, even when it contradicts
all traditional teachings. The strategy for
that is to explain that the contemporary
teaching is “compassionate.” For example,
abortion is “compassionate” because the
mother would suffer if the fetus were
brought to term, and the baby might suffer
due to being unwanted. This gambit is all-
purpose because compassion is purely
subjective.
2. Traditional morality (such as the lay
precepts) has to be gotten rid of, while
continuing to pay lip service to it. I pointed
out the methods of loosening, rewriting, and
ignoring, with examples.
15. The examples used don’t really establish the
points you claim they do.
Oh. Could you be more specific about which

example fails to establish what point? I would
like to fix this if possible.
Apparently your assumptions about what readers
will understand and know about goes far beyond
the terminology of moral philosophy.
I’m puzzled. What do you think I’m assuming

readers know that they may not?

““In America the precepts are generally defined
in terms of intention, rather than in terms of
action.” This is characteristic of Protestant
morality.
It’s not a unique characteristics of Protestant
morality to taking intention into consideration.
Traditional Korean lay Buddhists used to
interpret the fifth precept that way even in pre
modern times. and Intention is what makes
Buddhist concept of Karma ‘Buddhist’. For
example, in Jainism, intended killing and
unintended killing is not discriminated.

Another problem or weakness in your argument

is that you tend to commit fallacy of cherry
picking evidence in your representation of the
so-called ‘traditional (Asian) Buddhism’.
Lay Buddhist ethics in Theravada Buddhism in
South eastern Asia may serve as an example for
your purpose. In other words, a traditional
Buddhist ethics accepted and practiced at a
certain time, in a certain place by a certain sect
of traditional Buddhism might be in opposition
to the current Western ethics. But it does not
necessarily mean all of traditional (Asian)
Buddhism’s moralities are in opposition to it.
I often find your representation of Traditional
Buddhism selective (intentionally or
unintentionally).

It’s not a unique characteristics of Protestant

morality to taking intention into consideration.
Sure, any sane ethics needs to take intentions

into consideration. My point was that the
Consensus approach to the lay precepts manages
to define them out of existence by overlooking
what you actually do. That is because secular
Americans don’t think killing, drinking, and
most sex acts are wrong. The precepts say they
are wrong, and to get around that, the actual
actions are defined as irrelevant by Consensus
teachers.
Lay Buddhist ethics in Theravada Buddhism in
South eastern Asia may serve as an example for
your purpose…. But it does not necessarily
mean all of traditional (Asian) Buddhism’s
moralities are in opposition to it.
Yes, Buddhisms are extremely diverse. But,

Theravada is a large fraction of all Buddhism;
and (more important) it is the historical root for
the Insight Meditation Society, which is the
largest contributor to Consensus Buddhism.
I know less about East Asian Mahayana than
Theravada. However, my impression is that pre-
modern East Asian Buddhists also thought that
the lay precepts actually forbade the actions they
say they do. So, I would guess Korean Buddhists
thought you should not kill insects, have an
abortion, commit adultery, or get drunk. Am I
wrong? (Consensus Buddhists think all those are
OK in some circumstances, so long as you have
good intentions.)

“Theravada is a large fraction of all Buddhism;

and (more important) it is the historical root for
the Insight Meditation Society, which is the
largest contributor to Consensus Buddhism.”
I see. I got it. If the largest leading sect in
Consensus Buddhism is the Insight Meditation
Society and its historical root is Theravada
Buddhism, then it’s not a fair criticism to accuse
you of cherry picking evidence.

So, I would guess Korean Buddhists thought you

should not kill insects, have an abortion, commit
adultery, or get drunk. Am I wrong?
You are not wrong. I also think you are probably
right in saying that the mainstream western
Buddhists tend to distort the meaning the 5
precepts for lay Buddhists by rephrasing them,
as follows.
Honor the body – Do not misuse sexuality
( https://zmm.mro.org/training/receiving-the-
zen-precepts/ )
What I’m not convinced of is just that western
Buddhism’s attitude – sensual/sexual pleasure is
basically good and O.K – really comes from
protestant moralities.
22. Curt Kastens says:

I was getting ready to write ths comment on a

site called the Unrepentent Marxist in which
politcal dilemmas and choices was under
discussion. Then I figured what the hell, I am
probably taking an unauthorized short cut, to the
final solution of the human problem. Yet since
the Wannsee is not to far away I might be able to
get away with it.
One will not find the final solution to the
problem of human suffering in the works of
Trotsky, or Marx, or the Bible, or even in the
writings of Thomas Paine. No an ethical final
solution to all political dilemmas and all human
suffering can in the end only be achieved
through a firm commitment to birth control.
Whose toes would this commitment step on?
Who would lack the will to carry out the final
solution?
23. michau says:

Many Western Buddhist teachers interpret

precepts in a way that agrees with the already
existing ethical system. But I don’t agree that it
is completely non-distinguishable from non-
Buddhist ethics. One of the things you quote
refers to “mindful eating, drinking, and
consuming”. I don’t think any non-Buddhist
would put any importance on mindful eating or
drinking. In mainstream Western culture
excessive drinking is not seen as anything wrong
(it’s your private business, as long as you don’t
harm others). But according to that quote,
getting completely drunk is out of the question –
it’s impossible to do it mindfully.
I also see a problem with the claimed opposition
between Western Buddhists, who supposedly
bend the rules to match them with the pre-
existing moral system, and Eastern Buddhists,
who supposedly treat the rules literally and don’t
try to bend them. For one thing, most of Western
Buddhist figures I’ve read have relatively
orthodox view of the Buddhist ethical rules (e.g.
Thanissaro Bhikkhu or Yuttadhammo), so I
don’t see any “consensus” that you keep talking
about. And for another, how come you believe
that Buddhist in Asia didn’t bend the rules?
Thailand/Siam, despite being a Buddhist
country, has had a capital punishment for a long
time, and that’s a pretty obvious violation of the
first precept. Do you really believe that Thai
Buddhists simply admitted “that’s clearly
against our morality, but so what”? That’s not
what people do. I’m not a scholar, so I don’t
have proofs, but I’m pretty sure that they
invented tons of rationalisations of why the
capital punishment wasn’t really against the first
precept. And that’s just one simple example.
Hi michau,
mindful eating
This is a Consensus invention; it is not found in

traditional Buddhism, as far as I know. The
nearest traditional practice is the development of
revulsion for food by imagining that it is dog’s
vomit as you eat it.
mindful drinking
This is also a Consensus invention based on

Calvinism. The fifth precept is traditionally
interpreted as forbidding any amount of alcohol.
In many traditional Buddhist societies, that was
modified in practice, but as far as I know, there
was no “mindful drinking.”
the claimed opposition between Western
Buddhists, who supposedly bend the rules to
match them with the pre-existing moral system,
and Eastern Buddhists, who supposedly treat the
rules literally and don’t try to bend them
I didn’t say that. Where does it seem I said that?

Maybe it needs clarification.
Thanissaro is definitely not a Consensus
Buddhist. I have often praised him for his
opposition to the Consensus. I don’t know
anything about Yuttadhammo, but I expect that
you are right that he is also not Consensus.
25. michau says:

Well, according to my understanding of

Buddhism, it’s pretty uncontroversial that
whatever you do, it’s better if you do it
mindfully.
Is there any major Buddhist group that wouldn’t
agree with that? In what way is it closer to
Calvinism than to Buddhism?
I know that according to traditional
interpretation, the fifth precept means “no
alcohol at all”. But I’m not arguing that Thich
Nhat Hanh’s interpretation is traditional, I’m just
arguing that it isn’t identical to “current Western
leftish secular ethics”, which has nothing against
excessive drinking.
I didn’t say that. Where does it seem I said that?
Maybe it needs clarification.
Right, you didn’t say that explicitly. But if

FTFY ethics was present not just in some parts
of Western Buddhism, but also in Thai
Buddhism, and probably in any other kind of
Buddhism that involved non-monks that lived in
a society with a pre-existing ethical system, then
what is the point of this blog note?

“current Western leftish secular ethics”, which

has nothing against excessive drinking.
This may vary according to where one is in the

West. American middle class morality (derived
from Puritanism) does definitely condemn
excessive drinking.
if FTFY ethics was present not just in some
parts of Western Buddhism, but also in Thai
Buddhism, and probably in any other kind of
Buddhism that involved non-monks that lived in
a society with a pre-existing ethical system, then
what is the point of this blog note?
The point is to explain how American

Consensus Buddhists can pretend that their
morality is Buddhist when it actually isn’t.
The same explanation may also apply to Thai
Buddhists; but that is not the subject of this blog
post.
27. michau says:
I see. Perhaps it’s just the problem that you too

often write “Western” when you actually mean
“American”. “The West” is a pretty large place,
and much less homogenous than it may seem.

That is quite possible; I definitely made that

mistake early in this series. Jayarava, among
others, pointed out that the Consensus is not big
in the UK, so I’ve tried to be more careful.
I didn’t use the term “Western Buddhism” in
this post at all. I did refer to “Western Buddhist
teachers.” This case is a bit tricky, because there
are traditionalist American Buddhist teachers
who are not Consensus. There is “American
Buddhism” (which usually refers to the
Consensus, even though a large majority of
American Buddhists are ethnically Asian and
not Consensus), but “American Buddhist
teachers” might be understood as “Buddhist
teachers who are American” rather than
“Consensus.” Consensus teachers frequently
refer to “Western Buddhism,” by which they
mean “Consensus,” but obviously there are
many non-Consensus Buddhisms in the West.
This is why I had to invent a new term!
29. michau says:

Yeah, in this case I meant references to

“Western ethics”. Many Western countries
aren’t even Protestant, so your linking of some
norms with Protestant morality cannot be true in
general for the “Western ethics”.
30. michau says:
I have another example: polyamory. It goes

against mainstream Western morality. But as far
as I know, Western Buddhism has nothing
against it, just like, say, traditional Tibetan
Buddhism. I would assume that Consensus
Buddhism doesn’t condemn polyamory, does it?

As it happens, we had a discussion of Consensus

Buddhist sexual ethics (implicitly including
polyamory) recently here and in the follow-up
comments. In short, Consensus Buddhism has
nothing to say about it.
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34. sethsegall says:

David, your series has stimulated me to

formulate my own understanding of what
Buddhist ethics means to me. My first attempt is
here: http://www.existentialbuddhist.com/
2015/12/buddhism-and-moral-coherence/ Would
love your response!

Hi, Seth — Glad that this provoked some
thoughts. Thank you very much for the
invitation to reply. I’ll do that over on your blog
now!
“Ethics” is advertising
AnistonSmartWater
By “ethics,” in quotes, I mean talk

about ethics, rather than what people
actually do. This page explains
“ethics” as signaling: personal
advertisement. We all display
“ethicalness” as a strategy for looking
like attractive mates and coworkers,
by signaling class status, tribal loyalty,
and superior personality traits.
Although this post is part of a series on

leftish “Buddhist ethics,” most of it
applies equally to all ethical posturing.
As you read it, you can imagine the
small adjustments required for
Christian rightish “ethics,” or for
secular centrist “ethics.”
People really, really want Buddhism to

be about ethics, even though it isn’t.
Anyone who has read more than a
couple Buddhist books knows:
Consensus “Buddhist ethics” does
not contradict leftish secular morality
on any issue.
Consensus “Buddhist ethics”
contradicts traditional Buddhist
morality on most issues.
From this, one ought to conclude that

“Buddhist ethics” is not Buddhist at
all. It just is leftish secular morality.
Calling it “Buddhist” does not make it
so. Although most Buddhists know the
facts, no one draws the obvious
conclusion. Why do Buddhists want to
pretend we have a distinctive
“Buddhist ethics”?
No one notices the anomaly because no
one takes “Buddhist ethics” seriously
as ethics. When you, a leftish
Westerner, gradually convert to
Buddhism, “Buddhist ethics” never
requires you to change your moral
actions or ethical thinking. That’s very
comfortable. You come to trust,
without noticing the general pattern,
that “Buddhist ethics” has no force. It
is always safe to ignore it in practice.
However, it needs to be referred to
piously at ritually appropriate times.
So what is “Buddhist ethics” for?

This question is important, because
Consensus Buddhism is roughly
“meditation” plus “ethics.” For the
Consensus, “what is Buddhist ethics
for?” is half of the question “what is
Buddhism for?”.
A non-Buddhist is more likely to put it

differently: “Why are you a
Buddhist?” That’s a question worth
pondering.
They wouldn’t ask that unless you said

you were a Buddhist. So, why do you
say you are a Buddhist? (Or “are into
Buddhism,” or “practice Buddhism.”)
That’s another interestingly different
question. I think it contains the seed of
the answer to “what is ‘Buddhist
ethics’ for?”.
Brad Warner, my favorite Zen

teacher, recently blogged about why
people in small American towns say
they are Christians:
Saying you’re a Christian in Foley,

Alabama may not necessarily mean
you’re a Christian as opposed to a
Buddhist or Jew or Muslim, etc.
Rather it may mean that you are
attempting to align yourself with what
you see as the more ethical, thoughtful
and just generally decent members of
your community rather than those
elements who drink and curse and
fight and generally cause a lot of
problems for everybody else. Saying
you’re a Christian in places like this
usually means, I think, that you’re
trying to be one of the good guys.
To them, the only people who try to

be decent are the Christians (or
whatever other religion they were
raised among, but I’ll stick with the
example I’m most familiar with). They
have the experience that those who
proclaim themselves not to be
Christian are often lawless and
unprincipled, disruptive to society,
dangerous. To say you’re not a
Christian is sort of like saying you
don’t believe in the law. That could
mean you’re capable of all sorts of
criminal behavior from jaywalking
right on up to murder and mayhem.
Saying you are a Christian in

Berkeley, California1 has a different
effect. Some people there interpret
“Christian” as “homophobic racist
who thinks corporations should be
allowed to pollute as much as they like,
and poor people should just starve to
death.”
Let’s rewrite Warner’s explanation,
for use in Berkeley:
Saying you are a Buddhist in

Berkeley may not necessarily mean
you’re a Buddhist as opposed to a
feminist or New-Ager or anti-globalist,
etc. Rather it may mean that you are
attempting to align yourself with what
your community rather than those
elements who discriminate and exploit
and harrass and generally cause a lot
of problems for everybody else. Saying
you’re a Buddhist in places like this
usually means, I think, that you’re
trying to be one of the good guys.
In other words, “Buddhist” in
Berkeley means the same thing as
“Christian” in Foley. Most Foley
Christians may be ignorant of basic
Christian doctrines, and rarely if ever
go to church, but that’s not the point.
Most Berkeley Buddhists may be
ignorant of basic Buddhist doctrines,
and rarely if ever go to a meditation
group, but that’s not the point. That’s
not what Buddhism is for. It’s a way of
saying what sort of person you are. At
least, that’s one thing it is for!
What is “I am a Buddhist” supposed to

say about you? The rest of this page
suggests that it is a statement of
allegiance to the monist-leftist side of
the American culture-war tribal split;
it is a sign of moral piety; it is a claim
for high status within the middle class;
and it signifies particular personality
traits such as openness and
agreeableness.
This used to work well, because it was

a “costly signal.” However, the
strategy’s effectiveness has declined
over time. Saying “I am a Buddhist”
may now be heard as “I’m cowardly,
disorganized, boring, and dumb.”
We can do better than that. At the end

of this page, I’ll discuss better
approaches to Buddhism, to ethics,
and to communicating what sort of
people we are.
Costly signaling
In economics and in evolutionary

biology, “saying what sort of person
you are” is called signaling.
People differ; and so we discriminate.

We’d rather marry someone generous
and considerate than someone selfish
and oblivious. We prefer doctors who
are knowledgeable and attentive to
ones who are incompetent and
arrogant. We don’t want to sleep with
someone who “forgets” to mention
they are married and have active
herpes, or buy a used car from an
acquaintance who has turned the
odometer back.
In short, we would rather collaborate

with good people than bad people.
However, the people we want to
collaborate with are more likely to
cooperate if they think we’re good
people. So everyone goes around
saying “I’m good! I’m good!” a million
times a day.
Except that it’s really easy to say “I’m

good!” even if you aren’t. Bad people
go around saying “I’m good!” all day
too. How do you know who is telling
the truth?
This is such a difficult and important

problem that much of everyone’s day
consists of trying to figure out whether
other people are good, and trying to
convince them that you are. How?
Someone saying “I’m good!” is not

credible because it’s cheap and easy.
(So no one says that literally.) You are
more likely to be persuaded if you see
them writing a check to a charitable
organization, or if they spend a
weekend volunteering with you at a
homeless shelter. Those are costly
signals—one in money, one in time.
Religion is a costly signal. Going to

church every Sunday wastes much of
your leisure time, and they want ten
percent of your income. Meditation
retreats take a whole weekend at least;
they’re excruciatingly boring,
physically painful, the food is usually
awful, and you aren’t supposed to get
high or or play video games. In both
religions you have to sit through
tiresome morality lectures and pretend
to be nice to everyone. These are
credible signals. If you know someone
is religious, you know for sure
something about them; no one would
do those things unless they had a
compelling reason. But what is religion
signaling?
Partly—this should be obvious now—

religiosity signals that you are ethical.
That is mainly what Consensus
“Buddhist ethics” was invented for.
But why does it work? Why would you
believe that someone who wastes a lot
of time and money on religion is
ethical, rather than stupid or crazy?
Geoffrey Miller’s Spent: Sex,

Evolution, and Consumer Behavior
gave me considerable insight into
contemporary Buddhism. Mostly we
buy and do things, he writes, not for
their inherent qualities, but for what
they say about us.
It may take some work to realize how

pervasive this is; I recommend the
book highly. Once you see it, our
compulsive signaling is both funny and
sad. It’s funny because mostly we are
unaware of it; we deliberately blind
ourselves to our own motives. It’s sad
because we choose what to consume,
and how we spend our time, in order
to define what sort of person we are—
rather than to enjoy ourselves. Mostly,
we don’t even know what we actually
like! Signaling is a dystopian arms
race. Conspicuous waste (of time,
attention, money, and physical
resources) is one of its main
mechanisms.2 If we could somehow all
agree to stop, everyone could have
better lives.
Miller’s first example—now a bit

dated—is Glacéau™ SmartWater™.
Drinking it signals healthiness,
hipness, and sexiness. But it’s just
distilled water with tiny amounts of
three common minerals added.
There’s nothing about the contents of
the bottle that is healthy, hip, or
sexual. The steep price tag is justified
by branding. Branding is what
associates a product with the
particular personal qualities it signals.
So how do you do that?
One way is with celebrity
endorsement. SmartWater “is
advertised with the image of a nearly
nude Jennifer Aniston.”3 Does this
make anyone believe SmartWater™ is
“a magical intelligence-boosting elixir
from the French Alps”?4 I doubt it.
What does she know about health?
Maybe some people are dumb enough
to think SmartWater™ is something
more than ordinary water, but that’s
not the point. As a signal, it would
work just as well if no one believed
that.
Why? Because it’s expensive, and

because everyone knows that everyone
else knows that it signals healthiness,
hipness, and sexiness. So everyone
knows what it is meant to signal, and
that it is a costly signal of that. And
how does everyone know that?
Advertising. The point of most

advertising is not to convince you a
product is functionally superior. It is
to inform you which unrelated,
personal qualities the product signals.
And why do you have to see the
advertisement a dozen times before
you buy? Because you need to be
convinced that everyone else has seen
it, so they know what your buying the
product is supposed to mean.
Anyone can buy SmartWater™, even
diabetic, clueless, ugly people. So even
if we all know it’s meant to signal
healthiness, hipness, and sexiness, why
would anyone think you are healthy,
hip, and sexy if they see you drinking
it?
The stuff is expensive enough that for

most people it forces trade-offs. If you
drink SmartWater™, you must spend
less on something else. This makes
SmartWater™ a credible public
display of your priorities. We know
that you are making a significant effort
to be seen as healthy, hip, and sexy,
rather than (say) comfort-loving,
reliable, and caring. Your attempt is
only likely to work if you actually are
at least somewhat healthy, hip, and
sexy—because there’s lots of other
ways we can check. So unless you are
an idiot pursuing an obviously doomed
strategy, the costliness of your effort
makes the signal at least somewhat
reliable.
And, of course, SmartWater™ is not

your only signal. It works only as part
of a lifestyle: a comprehensive package
of healthiness-hipness-sexiness signals.
Taken as a whole, a lifestyle is
extremely expensive, and therefore a
credible signal.
Um, yes, … so, about Buddhist ethics.
Absence-of-Judgement-Dalai-
Lama-511x315
The Dalai Lama, as everyone knows, is

a saint, and his omnipresent smiling
face endorses Buddhism™, so it must
be highly ethical. How do you know he
is a saint? What, specifically, has he
done that is unusually ethical? (I hope
you find it a bit uncomfortable that
you can’t answer this question.) We
know he is a saint because he’s the
official spokesperson for Buddhism™,
which is an especially ethical religion.
And we know it’s an especially ethical
religion because he endorses it. Isn’t
that interesting?
No one cares what the Dalai Lama

actually says or thinks or does about
ethics. (Which is why no one knows,
and why you can get away with
“quoting” him saying whatever vapid
moralizing nonsense you like.) What
matters is that everyone knows that
everyone else knows he’s a symbol of
ethicalness. (Everyone knows that
because of a highly effective co-
branding campaign he and the
Consensus ran in the 1990s.) So by
mentioning him reverentially, you can
signal that you are at least trying to be
perceived as ethical.
And, by saying “I am into Buddhism,”

you at least “align yourself with what
your community.”
But, talk is pretty cheap. To make

your signal credible, you need to buy a
whole lifestyle package. You need an
ideology. To quote Miller:
Each individual’s ideology

(religious, political, and philosophical
beliefs) can be viewed as his ad
campaign—designed not to convey
verifiable news about the world, but to
create positive emotional associations
between the individual as product and
the customer’s aesthetic, social, and
moral aspirations. (p. 30)
Signaling tribal commitment
The Baby Boomer countercultures

split the American middle class into
two hostile tribes. Members of both
considered anyone in the other tribe
inherently immoral. With us, or
against us! To be minimally acceptable
as a human being, you had to
demonstrate commitment to the
correct side.
To count as a member in good

standing of the monist (“left”) tribe,
you needed to have the correct opinion
about hundreds of issues. You had to
like tofu, Bob Dylan, Cesar Chavez,
and Tom Robbins, and to hate nuclear
power, Dolly Parton, Ronald Reagan,
and the Moral Majority.
Checking to see whether someone had

all the right opinions would be hugely
time-consuming. This is what “badges”
are for.5 A badge is a low cost, easily
communicated signal that stands for a
group of valued traits. In the ’60s and
’70s, hair length was a reliable badge.
If you were a guy with long hair, you
definitely liked tofu (or pretended to),
and if you had a crew cut, you hated it
(or were careful never to try it because
that’s sissy food). This was highly
efficient and a Good Thing. Then, in
the ’80s, rural working-class heavy
metal fans grew long hair, and that
screwed everything up for everyone
else.
“I’m a Buddhist” was widely adopted

as a replacement badge. If you “were a
Buddhist,” you definitely liked Bob
Dylan and hated Dolly Parton, and so
on for everything on the list. You
didn’t necessarily know or care much
about Buddhism, but that wasn’t the
point.
Badges are reliable only if they are

“policed.”6 If insufficiently green
people tried to make themselves
acceptable by passing themselves off as
Buddhists, but weren’t actually
committed, the badge wouldn’t work.
So, much of what goes on at Buddhist
events is badge-checking. The badge
police quiz you about all your
opinions; if you admit to watching a
UFC championship, or thinking of
your brother in the military as a hero,
or voting for a Republican, you are
kicked out.7
Signaling moral piety
One main reason Christians go to

church is to signal their moralness.
Almost all Americans were nominally
Christian until the Boomer generation.
The hippie/green/monist/left tribe
mostly rejected Christianity, which
created a new problem: how to signal
moralness, if not by going to church?
Religion has many functions, so there

were many reasons the tribe needed a
replacement. In the 1970s, “spiritual
experience” was the driver for
American Buddhism and other new
religious movements. In the 1980s,
though, signaling moral piety also
became important. The problem was,
1970s American Buddhism had
nothing much to say about ethics.
Let’s go back to SmartWater™ for a

moment. It was an astonishing
branding accomplishment: nothing
about it had anything to do with what
it signaled. However, that made the
product vulnerable to moral
entrepreneurs, who developed a moral
marketing campaign pointing out that
it’s just water8 and that its disposable
bottles kill sea otters and give you
diabetes.
VitaminWater™, a line extension of
SmartWater™, solved that problem. It
has vitamins added, so it’s not just
water.
Mind you, everyone knows that for a

penny or two you can get a pill with
more vitamins in it. So nobody drinks
VitaminWater™ because they think
it’s healthy.9 Its function is the same
as SmartWater™—signaling.
Consensus “Buddhist ethics” was

invented in the 1980s to give Buddhism
a moral signaling function. It’s got
hardly any ethics in it, and everyone
knows that the ethics it does have are
exactly the same as you can get
anywhere else. No one actually buys
Buddhism™ to get the ethics inside.
They buy it because it’s an effective
signal of commitment to being seen as
moral. It’s effective because it’s
expensive and because everyone knows
it’s supposed to be ethical. Whether or
not it is ethical is just as irrelevant as
whether or not VitaminWater™ is
healthy. It’s a strategy for showing
respect for social norms and stability,
while not actually signing up to do
anything specific or difficult.
That commitment signals not only to

other people, but also to yourself. In an
era of ethical ambiguity, many people
worry “Am I ethical enough? How
ethical should I be? How do I know
what would count as adequately
ethical?” A costly investment in a
supposedly-ethical system is a way of
reassuring yourself that you are
making a serious effort. Of course, for
this to work, the system needs to
contain at least homeopathic quantities
of ethical ingredients.
A related function of “Buddhist ethics”

is to provide an illusion of extra
justification for what is, actually,
mainstream secular ethics. A major
problem with secular ethics is
groundlessness. It can’t say why
anything is right or wrong (despite
best efforts by secular moral
philosophers). This makes secularists
secretly uneasy. Traditional religious
morality was backed by stories, at
least; they may have been silly, but
they did provide some comfort.
“Buddhist ethics” is designed to give
the vague sense that somehow
somewhere there’s some convincing
magical and/or rational Buddhist
justification for secular ethical beliefs.
Signaling class
The American social class system is a

taboo topic; so I have to point out
some basic facts that everyone knows
but are rarely stated explicitly.
Social class is not economic class.
Many working class people make more
than a hundred thousand dollars a
year; many upper-middle class people
make less than thirty. Income and
social class correlate statistically, and
are also causally coupled, but only
loosely. Social class is determined by
personal mental characteristics, not by
anything external such as possessions
or employment (although those do
function as class signals).
The middle class is a competitive

ladder, or a series of progressively
smaller, more exclusive circles: social
clubs. The ladder is created by the
upper middle class, for the benefit of
the upper middle class. The border
between the middle-middle and upper
middle class is the most stringently
defended of any in the system.
Although upper middle class people
compete with each other, they
cooperate against the middle-middle
and below.
Social class is largely a matter of

“values”: attitudes, tastes, and
opinions. What you like (or say you
like) defines your class. Roughly
speaking:
To be lower middle class, you only

need to have the right general
attitudes, which is easy because there’s
only a handful. The most important is
wanting to move up within the middle
class. To do that, you know you need
to be “respectable.”
To be middle-middle class, you need
to have all the correct opinions. (You
are allowed to choose the leftish set of
opinions or the rightish one, of course.)
This requires memorizing endless lists
of taboos and shibboleths, which is a
conspicuous waste of time. “The news”
and the political internet are tools for
this. The high cost of keeping track of
all that meaningless noise, and the ease
of verifying it by asking your opinion
of last night’s synthetic outrage event,
makes it an effective signal.
To be upper middle class, you need
to be able to figure out, on the fly, what
would be the correct opinion about
things that are new to you. This
requires conceptual sophistication:
years of study not only of details, but
also of ways to think. That is what a
liberal arts education used to be for.10
Some of the criteria for the upper

middle class are just arbitrary
shibboleths invented to keep the club
small. But if you admit only a few
people, why not the best? The upper
middle class selects for valuable allies
—the sorts of people they want on a
business team, or who would be a good
parent for their children. Some traits
they look for are intelligence,
adaptability, diligence, social skills,
ability to defer gratification, and
ability to stay cool under pressure.
Everyone in the middle class wants to

move up, so everyone wants to develop
these qualities. That is difficult, so
second best is to find ways to signal
having more of the qualities than you
actually possess. This leads to an arms
race of faking vs. detecting. The
elaborate tests devised by the upper-
middle class are relatively, not
perfectly, reliable. As the middle-
middle class figures out how to pass a
specific upper middle class test, it loses
its value. The test then moves down,
and becomes a test of middle-middle
classness (and screens out the lower
middle class). Eventually the lower
middle figures it out too, and it loses all
its value. In the meantime, the upper
middle class has to keep inventing new
criteria.11
Some American middle-class values

are specifically Protestant.12
Secularized versions of Protestant
morality are now the code of public
decorum for the American middle
class (left and right). That is, to be
middle class in America, you need to
demonstrate that you can conform to
Protestant values when ritually
required to do so.13
One important function of Consensus

Buddhism is training in how to act
middle class. It both has methods for
developing some of the general traits,
and also teaches how conform to some
specifics of the code of public
propriety. This is the reason the
Consensus appeals only to the middle
class. (The working class and upper
class both think these values are
ridiculous.)
Up through the 1960s, white American

Buddhism was upper middle class.
There wasn’t any white American
Theravada yet, and Tibetan Buddhism
hadn’t arrived. Zen was the thing. The
Zen of the day was an Orientalist
version of Episcopalianism (an upper
middle class sect):14 intellectually
pretentious and emotionally repressed,
with no beliefs to speak of, an austere
aesthetic, and just the right amount of
grim ritual.
Why did this successfully signal upper

middle classness? Intelligence: the few
available books were dry and
academic. Zen was supposedly
paradoxical, and making any sense of
it was famously difficult. Its rituals
required memorizing and paying
precise attention to details.
Adaptability: Zen, at the time,
required you to accept a lot of alien
Japanese culture. Diligence and ability
to defer gratification: meditation is
boring and painful; a test of stick-to-it-
ive-ness. Ability to stay cool under
pressure: meditation is training in not
expressing emotions. Equanimity is
hugely valuable in a tense boardroom
negotiation. Social skills: an exception
—Zen practitioners were notoriously
weak in this area!
Effective signals must be costly. Before

the 1980s, calling yourself a Buddhist
would mostly provoke suspicion or
hostility: a social cost. It also required
great effort to track down rare texts,
to travel great distances to meet
teachers, and to struggle with alien,
difficult ideas and practices.
During the ’80s and ’90s, user-friendly

presentations and widespread
availability dramatically lowered
Buddhism’s cost—and therefore its
signaling value. This popularization
moved it down to the middle-middle
class. New books made Buddhism
easier to understand. The Consensus
eliminated the fussy rituals and foreign
cultural displays. Its very popularity
made it useless as a signal of
originality and risk-taking.
(Meditation, however, remains a trial!)
Signaling openness
Current personality theory considers

“openness to experience” a key trait.
Miller describes it as “curiosity,
novelty seeking, broad-mindedness,
interest in culture, ideas, and
aesthetics. Openness predicts
emotional sensitivity, social tolerance,
and political liberalism. People high on
openness tend to seek complexity and
novelty, readily accept changes and
innovations, and prefer grand new
visions to mundane, predictable
ruts.” (p. 146)
The 1960s counterculture had

unprecedentedly high levels of
openness.15 Traditional religions
signaled low openness, i.e.
“squareness”; one of many reasons the
hippies had to create new ones.
Buddhism signals low openness in Asia

—it’s mostly profoundly conservative
—but in the West, Buddhism was a
signal of high openness, simply
because it was unfamiliar. If you are a
Western Buddhist, it’s likely you think
of yourself as having most of the
characteristics Miller describes. If you
became a Western Buddhist before
about 1990, you probably actually do.
Or did.
As Buddhism became more familiar,
as its sharp edges and spiky bits were
smoothed out by well-meaning
Consensus innovators, as more and
more of the alien Asian elements were
replaced with comfortable Western
ones, as its complex concepts were
replaced with simpler ones in the name
of accessibility, as its practices were
rendered emotionally safe—it ceased
to function as an effective signal of
openness. Buddhism became about as
radical as The Gap clothing chain
(which originally marketed to hippies
but now sells mid-range clothes to
middle-aged middle-middle class
middle Americans). If you actually
have high openness, Consensus
Buddhism is utterly unappealing.
I think many people continue with

Consensus Buddhism because they
want to seem open to experience, and
haven’t noticed it no longer signals
that. Consensus Buddhists want to be
seen as liberal, cultured, curious, and
tolerant. My observation is that, on
average, they are the exact opposites.
16 Consensus Buddhism now
comfortably confirms status-quo social
reality.
Buddhism: badge of blandness
For the upper middle class, it’s

important to have some unusual,
vigorous opinions and tastes; this is a
test. The ability to cogently defend
your originality demonstrates
intelligence, independence, and
willingness to take calculated risks. As
part of this test, you also need to stay
cool while someone insults your
opinion, and to find a humorous, non-
hostile comeback. This demonstrates
emotional stability. Buddhism
qualified as an esoteric, socially-risky
activity in the ’60s and ’70s, so it was
useful as part of a portfolio of signals
of independent intelligence.
Conspicuous blandness—the absence

of distinctive taste—is typical of the
middle middle class. If you know you
cannot pass a test of independent
opinion, it’s the next-best strategy. If
you admit no atypical passions, no one
can needle you about them, so you can
simulate emotional stability. Also, in a
situation where you aren’t sure even
what the consensus opinion is,
expressing none at all is safest.
Many people know it’s higher status to

have independent opinions, but are
incapable of developing any
themselves. As a simulation, they yell
“racism is a moral cancer!” or
“socialism is the road to serfdom!” in a
proud, confrontational way, as though
these were not the most bland opinions
anyone could possibly adopt. (They
were radical opinions—in the 1960s—
and somehow that reputation sticks to
them in less supple minds.)
Consensus Buddhism is now the

blandest American religion. It’s
thoroughly familiar, comfortable, safe;
it doesn’t require you to believe or do
anything in particular; everyone in the
left tribe has vaguely positive feelings
about it, so you won’t be ostracized.
Beyond that, it’s training in how to be

bland. Its ways of talking, the social
practices at gatherings, and the
meditation practices themselves all
encourage “equanimity”: blandness,
absence of strong emotions,
abandoning likes and dislikes
(“attachment and aversion”).
Signaling agreeableness
Agreeableness, in current personality

theory, is “warmth, kindness,
sympathy, empathy, trust, compliance,
modesty, benevolence, and
peacefulness.”17 (Maybe this list
reminds you of something…)
Agreeableness is a good thing (most of

the time). In fact, it’s nearly the same
as moral goodness (most of the time).
We want friends, coworkers, and
spouses who are agreeable (most of the
time), and therefore we’re all trying to
signal high agreeableness (most of the
time).
If everyone were good, agreeableness

would always be good. But life includes
some bad people:18 dishonest
salesmen, womanizers/sluts who try to
seduce your spouse, coworker-
psychopaths who play devious office
politics, and outright criminals. If
everyone reacted to bad people with
trust, compliance, and peacefulness,
they’d grab everything and rape, kill,
and eat everyone. So some of the time,
agreeableness is a bad thing.
Assertiveness, power, domination,
hostility, and violence are sometimes
good things.
Opposing bad guys is risky; they

retaliate. Taking that risk is heroic
action on behalf of the community, and
it ought to be rewarded. It is
rewarded: most of us would rather
have, as friends, coworkers, and
spouses, people who will stand up for
what’s right in the face of wrong-
doing. Ideally, we want allies who are
consistently agreeable to our in-group,
and effective in supporting us; and
consistently hostile to our out-group,
and effective at opposing them. This is
difficult, and no one will do it for us all
the time.
Some people who know they are
incapable of skilled, situationally
appropriate hostility adopt a second-
best strategy: to be highly agreeable in
all situations. This eliminates the risk
of retaliation.
Consistently agreeable people are seen

as cowardly, weak, and maybe stupid
by the majority. They are free riders
who gain the benefits of others’
protection of society while avoiding
retaliation risk themselves. They are
pleasant to be around most of the time,
but you know they will be useless in a
crisis.
Agreeableness increases the risk of
predation by bad guys, so highly-
agreeable people try to form closed
communities in which everyone can be
nice to each other. Consensus
Buddhism, obviously, is one of those.
This works up to a point, but such
communities are easy pickings for
psychopaths. This is the pattern of
Buddhist sex scandals: it usually turns
out that many people knew, for many
years, what was going on, but no one
was willing to take a firm stand against
the perpetrator.
If you are a highly agreeable person, it

pays to advertise it. You want to find
other highly agreeable people to hang
out and be nice with. And you want
bad guys to know you aren’t going to
oppose them, in hopes you won’t
attract their attention, and they’ll
leave you alone.
One main function of ideologies is to

advertise your level of agreeableness.
Highly agreeable ideologies include
Consensus Buddhism, Mormonism,
and socialism. If you are highly
disagreeable—your best strategy if you
aren’t good at cooperation—it pays to
advertise that, too. Radical feminism,
the Westboro Baptists, and
Neoreaction signal broad
disagreeableness.
Consensus Buddhism is not only a
signal of high agreeableness; it’s a way
of developing the trait itself.
Many services are also marketed as

amplifiers of agreeableness. These
usually teach “etiquette,” that is, how
to emulate the tacit social norms of the
local ruling class. Such norms usually
require practicing superhuman levels
of patience, discretion, generosity, and
sympathy; the implicit goal is to
demonstrate that one’s prefrontal
cortex can maintain tight inhibitory
control over selfish or impulsive
behaviors. It has always been crucial
for ruling-class youth to acquire such
conspicuous agreeableness indicators,
so they can evaluate one another’s
capacity for peaceful and efficient
cooperation, which is vital to the
smooth operation of the various
conspiracies that secure their wealth
and power, such as feudal
aristocracies, organized religions,
trade guilds, parliaments, and media
conglomerates. Traditionally,
Europeans bought etiquette training at
boarding schools, universities, and
finishing schools. (Miller, pp. 241-2)
Such elite institutions are mainly open

only to the upper-middle and upper
classes. Consensus Buddhism functions
as a cut-price version: training in the
leftish middle class public code of
decorum.
Agreeableness is particularly valued

during courtship.19 Especially among
the left tribe, passionate statements of
commitment to agreeable ideologies
are an essential part of the mating
ritual. (See Miller, pp. 246-9, for funny
and insightful examples and analysis.)
In certain circles, “I’m a Buddhist” is
a powerful claim to romantic
attractiveness. (And some Buddhist
events can be highly efficient singles
markets!)
“Superhuman” levels of agreeableness

signal high status when agreeableness
is called for. Showing high
agreeableness in conflict situations
marks you as a loser.
Buddhism is for losers
At the beginning of this page, I asked:

“What is ‘Buddhist ethics’ for?” My
answer has been that it’s a strategy for
advertising yourself as a “good”
person—good to work with, hang out
with, or have children with. I’ve
explained why this strategy worked. I
say “worked,” because it no longer
does. Various trends I described have
progressively lowered Western
Buddhism’s signaling value. “Buddhist
ethics” isn’t fooling anyone anymore;
everyone understands, implicitly, that
there’s no such thing. Buddhism isn’t
daring and sexy and hip anymore; it’s
your batty aunt’s quaint, harmless,
old-fashioned hobby. And it has gone
from an upper middle class religion to
a middle-middle one, and now
probably a lower middle one.20
Lower middle class people are not

losers! There is nothing wrong with
lower middle class Buddhism. In fact,
the Aro gTér lineage, which I practice,
was almost entirely working class in
the 1980s, and is still mainly working
and lower middle class. I myself am
working class by some criteria, and
lower middle by some others.
There is nothing wrong with
comfortable, simplified, status-quo
Buddhism, either! The Consensus
impulse to create that was well-
motivated and useful. I would like to
see different Buddhisms available for
all sorts of different people.
By “Buddhism is for losers” I mean

that, at this point, saying you are a
Buddhist is likely to signal that you are
loser in the eyes of many people who, a
couple decades ago, would have been
impressed. For them, “Buddhist” now
means “well-intentioned but
ineffectual”; someone who can’t get
their stuff together enough to do
anything significant or interesting.
What’s dysfunctional is using

Buddhism to signal high status if that
doesn’t work. That is definitely a
loser’s strategy. It was bad enough
that Consensus Buddhism was mostly
empty posturing. Empty posturing
that doesn’t fool anyone is totally
pointless.
We can do better
We can do better at Buddhism, at

ethics, and at signaling.
Possibly we can do better at Buddhist

ethics, too. If a genuinely Buddhist
ethics were possible, that would at
least be intellectually fascinating. As a
Buddhist, I’d hope it could also solve
problems current secular ethics fails
at. I think a comprehensive
contemporary Buddhist ethics is
probably impossible. However, in
several upcoming pages I’ll suggest
ways Buddhism may at least
contribute to a sophisticated
contemporary ethics.
Suggesting that we can do better at

Buddhism, and how, is the overall goal
of this blog. Much of what I have done
so far may seem unpleasantly
disagreeable. I’ve suggested that
modernist American Buddhism was
dominated for two decades by a single
narrow school (the “Consensus”)
which had value in its time, but no
longer meets current needs. My
intention, in being disagreeable, is to
clear space for alternatives. I’ve begun
to sketch one alternative, but it
certainly should not be the alternative.
We can and should have many new
Buddhisms that are suitable for
different people, and that are better at
addressing their needs for meaning
than the Consensus now is.
We can do better at ethics. In an

upcoming post, I’ll consider “Buddhist
ethics” in terms of adult
developmental psychology. I’ll suggest
that “Buddhist ethics” is an adolescent
morality which may actively impede
some Buddhists’ personal growth.
Moral developmental psychology
explains more sophisticated ethical
approaches. It explains how, as
individuals, we can grow into them;
and how institutions and ideologies can
support individuals in that growth.
These insights could influence the
design of innovative Buddhist paths
that guide students toward moral
maturity and broad competence in
dealing with life challenges. Elsewhere,
I am also developing an approach to
contemporary ethics that I find
promising, and that is indirectly
influenced by Dzogchen.
We can do better at signaling. It’s
tempting to say “we should all stop
doing that, stop pretending, just be as
we are”; but that’s impossible.
Signaling is fundamental to the human
way of being. “Being as we are”
includes it. Also, it’s not a zero-sum
competition; it is a net positive. Similar
people enjoy each others’ company,
and getting accurate information
about other people’s personalities
allows us to form like-minded
communities. For example, high-
openness people can get together and
enjoy discussing cannibalism,
necrophilia, and black magic, so I
signal my high openness by writing
Buddhism for Vampires. Meanwhile,
low-openness people can get together
and enjoy discussing compassion,
healing, and mindfulness. I’m sure you
know where to find that!
For Buddhists, better signaling means

being more specific about what sort of
Buddhist you are—which could say a
lot about what sort of person you are
in general. Before the Consensus
homogenized all of Buddhism into
uniform blandness, saying that you
practiced Zen or Theravada might
have conveyed more information than
it does now. I hope in future that many
highly distinctive Western Buddhisms
will emerge. Declaring allegiance to
one will make it quite clear what sort
of person you are. This may enable
Buddhist subcultures to function as
highly supportive, close-knit
communities for the particular kinds
of people they attract.21 (See also my
“Inclusion, exclusion, unity and
diversity” on this point.)
More broadly, signals are somewhat

arbitrary—who would have thought
water bottles could signal sex?—and
choosing the right ones has a huge
impact on the quality of a society.
Signaling motivates the worst things
humans do. Rulers fight wars of
conquest less to grab material goodies
than to signal personal dominance.
Signaling also motivates the best things
humans do. Artistic creation is meant
to signal intelligence and openness.
Altruistic acts signal agreeability and
tribal loyalty.
The Renaissance began when a

handful of powerful men in Tuscany
agreed to compete with each other by
seeing who could commission the most
glorious artworks, instead of whose
army could slaughter the most people.
As individuals and as societies, we do
have some choice about which signals
to use. Understanding that most of
what we do is signaling helps us see
that we have choices. In any given
situation, is there a different way I
could signal the same personal quality,
whose side-effects would be better for
me and/or others? Can we eliminate
state subsidies for negative-value
signaling activities, and perhaps even
encourage positive-value ones?22
The Industrial Revolution led to

conspicuous consumption and
conspicuous waste as major signaling
methods. Consumption is great if you
actually enjoy it,23 but if you are
consuming mainly to signal, you’d
probably get more enjoyment from
something else. And, there’s nothing
good to be said for conspicuous waste.
Recently, awareness of this has driven
the development of conspicuously
ethical consumption: products
advertised as “fair trade” and eco-
friendly. Miller applauds this (p. 324),
but I am skeptical. Most such products
do not seem to be better in the ways
they claim. So far, there has been a
near-complete failure of badge
policing. The certification
organizations supposedly devoted to
this are thoroughly corrupt and have
altogether other agendas. Individuals
who buy “fair trade” products just
want to signal; they don’t actually care
whether it benefits poor people
thousands of miles away, so they don’t
bother to check. Still, the approach is
promising in principle.
The changing structure of the global

economy, shifting away from
industrial production and rendering
most middle class careers obsolete, will
force major changes in signal
strategies anyway. Miller writes (p.
305):
Something will soon replace the

current system of consumerist
capitalism and its key features:
credentialism, workaholism,
conspicuous consumption, single-
family housing, fragmented kin and
social networks, weak social norms,
narrowly economic definitions of social
progress and national status, and
indirect democracy distorted by
corporate interests and media
conglomerates. These seemingly
natural features of contemporary
society will seem as alien to our great-
grandchildren as mammoth hunting,
field plowing, and typewriting seem to
us now.
The middle class values that worked

well during the industrial era are now
obsolete. It’s widely predicted that the
Western middle class will be
automated out of existence over the
next few decades. Signaling allegiance
to middle class values is a becoming a
loser’s game.
Middle class Buddhism has outlived its

usefulness. Can we develop new
Buddhisms that point out ways to
escape the middle class into more
satisfactory ways of living?24
Note for non-American readers:

Berkeley is probably the furthest-left
town, politically, in America. ↩
This insight is due to Thorstein
Veblen, in The Theory of the Leisure
Class. ↩
Miller, p. 43. ↩
Miller, p. 43. Actually, it’s
manufactured by the Coca-Cola
Company in Hillside, New Jersey—
which is a mile west of Newark Airport
—and other unromantic places. ↩
Miller, p. 116. ↩
Miller, p. 117. ↩
This is because Buddhism is
commited to inclusivity and accepts
everyone. So long as they have the
correct opinions about all topics. ↩
It does taste surprisingly good. Yes,
I’ve bought it. By the way, have I told
you about how healthy, hip, and sexy I
am? ↩
Or maybe some people are so dumb
it doesn’t occur to them to think “I
could take a vitamin pill instead, and
save a buck fifty per bottle.” But
VitaminWater™ would work just as
well as a signal even if no one were
that dumb. ↩
It was also a wonderfully
conspicuous waste, since it is costly
and useless as preparation for any sort
of productive job. Changes in the
higher education funding system
opened the liberal arts to the lower
middle class, so now tens of millions of
people have expensive educations that
are useless both practically and as a
class signal. This is a disaster for both
individuals and society. (A liberal arts
education can be valuable in other
ways—but that’s outside the scope of
this post!) ↩
An interesting specific example is
musical taste. Up until the 1970s, to be
upper middle class, you had to like
classical music and dislike popular
music. This worked because you could
only learn about classical music in
college, and mostly only the upper
middle class went to college. It stopped
working because the middle-middle
started going to college, and also
because it was hard to deny that the
best rock music was as good as much
of the classical repertoire. The new
criterion was liking only the correct
sorts of rock, and being able to explain
what was correct about them. This
eventually got to be both too easy and
too geeky. So starting in the late 1990s,
the new new criterion was having
eclectic tastes. You had to be able to
say which were the best performers in
numerous genres, from alt-country to
nu metal to gabber. (Plus of course you
still had to have something intelligent
to say about Monteverdi.) See Let’s
Talk About Love: Why Other People
Have Such Bad Taste and “Changing
Highbrow Taste: From Snob to
Omnivore.” ↩
Catholic cultures place much less
value on diligence and the abilities to
defer gratification and suppress
emotions. Max Weber influentially
argued in The Protestant Ethic and the
Spirit of Capitalism that these were
keys to the development of the modern
world. ↩
Consider how people stereotypically
behave at Protestant funerals vs.
Catholic wakes, for example. ↩
“An Episcopalian is a Presbyterian
with a trust fund. A Presbyterian is a
Methodist with a college education.
And a Methodist is a Baptist with
shoes.” ↩
Miller has an extremely interesting
theory about why (p. 213) which,
unfortunately, is too complicated to
explain here. It involves memetic
parasites and the function of disgust.
↩
Another point. This is important,
but I’m relegating it to a footnote
because this page is too damn long.
Miller observes that openness is
valuable only when combined with
high intelligence. If you are smart
enough to evaluate whether new ideas
are good ones, being an early adopter
works in your favor. If not, openness
results in your adopting superficially
attractive but harmful and wrong
ideas. (A relevant proverb: “You
should have an open mind, but not so
open that your brain falls out.”)
Consensus Buddhism is infested with
“woo”: pseudoscientific and
supernatural nonsense. Some is
traditional Buddhist woo (which
modernist Asian Buddhists tried to get
rid of as early as the 1850s); much is
Western woo. High-openness, low-
intelligence people are suckers for the
stuff. ↩
Miller, p. 149. ↩
I’m using the phrase “bad people”
somewhat humorously. There are no
entirely bad people (or entirely good
people). However, this simplification
helps explain the logic of defector-
punishing. ↩
On average, women are more
agreeable than men. On average,
agreeableness is more valued in
women, and assertiveness in men. This
is probably the reason that Consensus
Buddhism has been progressively
feminized. For an insightful analysis,
see “Back to Suffragette City?” by
Nella Lou (a woman), based on a post
by Brooke Shedneck (another woman)
that was also excellent but
unfortunately is no longer available.
Nella Lou interprets the Hardcore
Dharma movement partly as a
backlash; I think she’s right.
Feminization probably contributes to
Consensus Buddhism’s progressively
lower perceived status (discussed in
my next section). I strongly support
the existence of feminine and/or
feminist religions, but I wouldn’t want
Western Buddhism to be available
only in that form. I do see some danger
of that happening. ↩
Meanwhile, ironically, Buddhism
has recently become the prestige
religion among the Chinese elite.
Perhaps even more interestingly, a
modernized form of Nyingma Tantra
is considered the highest-status
version. That addresses new problems
of meaningness—nihilism, specifically
—that rich, educated Chinese find
themselves facing rather suddenly. ↩
Miller points out (pp. 297-301 and
305-307) that American housing law is
a major obstacle to the formation of
close-knit communities. Anti-
discrimination regulations, created
with the best of intentions, have the
unintended side-effect of making
distinctive subsocieties illegal. He
makes an interesting a priori case that
this has been disastrous. I don’t know
how much empirical support there
may be for the thesis. ↩
Miller has two chapters of proposals
for government actions that would
shift signaling incentives. Many of
them I don’t like, but they are at least
interesting. ↩
“Consumption is great if you enjoy
it” is a Tantric perspective that is
contrary to Sutric Buddhism and to
leftish secular ethics (which derive
from Puritanism). I’ll touch on this
briefly in an upcoming post; I hope to
write about it in detail at some point.
↩
Stay tuned for discussion in an
upcoming episode. See also the
conclusion to Miller’s book, pp.
328-329. ↩
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Related
“Buddhist ethics” is neither Buddhist

nor ethics. “Buddhist ethics” is a
fraud: a fabrication created to deceive,
passed off as something valuable that
it is not, for the benefit of its creators
and promoters. “Buddhist ethics” is
actually a collection of self-
aggrandizing strategies for gaining
social status within the left…
The mindfulness crisis and the end of
Consensus Buddhism
The mindfulness crisis and the end of
Consensus Buddhism
Author of the book Meaningness and

several Buddhist sites. View all posts
by David Chapman
Author David ChapmanPosted on
October 5, 2015Categories Consensus
BuddhismTags Buddhism, Dalai
Lama, ethics, evolutionary psychology,
personality, Protestant Buddhism,
signaling, social class, Veblen
67 thoughts on ““Ethics” is
advertising”
John Willemsens says:

Reblogged this on Advayavada

Buddhism.
roughgarden says:
Good stuff, strong sociological

analysis. I wrote in a similar vein on
“Buddhism as brand” in a post called
“No Logo: the Post-Buddhism
Buddhist” http://
engagedbuddhism.net/2015/02/11/no-
logo-the-post-buddhism-buddhist/
roughgarden says:
“Perhaps even more interestingly, a

modernized form of Nyingma Tantra
is considered the highest-status
version.” Precisely. And even more
precisely, the higher the social status of
the Buddhist community, the LESS
concerned they are with ethics and
social justice; the more likely they are
to view Buddhism strictly as individual
liberation. The higher the class status,
which includes the majority of tantra
practitioners, east and west, the more
they appear to use Buddhism as a
justification for not giving a shit about
anybody but themselves.
I left a Nyingma Dzogchen tantra

community because it was insufferably
classist, catering to the global elite who
make 6 & 7-figure incomes. The
previous community was Shambhala,
also insufferably classist. After these
experiences, I left institutional
Buddhism altogether, and practice as a
“post-buddhism Buddhist” (See
above).
For more on a class analysis of

Buddhism, which I often discuss on
Engage! http://engagedbuddhism.net/
2015/01/14/what-suffering/
David Chapman says:
roughgarden — Thanks, that’s a

great post; I’ve tweeted a link to it!
I thought what you said about Gen
X / Gen Y attitudes to institutions is
right and important.
Unfortunately, while I think the

institutions created by Boomer
Buddhism have outlived their
usefulness, I think the kind of
Buddhism I want to see does require
institutions to function. It can’t work
on a DIY basis. (Some upcoming posts
address this obliquely; I might also
write about it explicitly at some point.)
I’ve been thinking recently that,

with Consensus Buddhism having
come to an end, Gen X/Y anti-
institutionalism is the remaining main
obstacle to modern Buddhist tantra.
There’s probably ways to work around
that, but it’s somewhat daunting.
Dublin says:
Just a couple comments:
These titles are getting more

clickbaity by the article. If you haven’t
already, can you admit this
prominently?
And, what signals do you suppose

you put out, especially from this blog?
Marie Ramos says:
Great series. Shines a light on how

tribal we are, and now invisible our
tribal-ness is to us.
And I have to thank you for the

beautiful little footnotes with back-
links. May this become a web-
standard!
David Chapman says:
Marie — Thank you very much!
The footnotes are produced via the

WordPress Markdown feature. I
recommend it!
Dublin —
These titles are getting more

clickbaity by the article. If you haven’t
already, can you admit this
prominently?
I hereby admit it gladly and

explicitly. I think it’s obvious enough
that “prominently” would be a waste
of readers’ attention.
Relatedly, it’s obvious that some of

what I write is satirical, which is not
nice. Some people object to that. I do it
because the topic is otherwise
extremely dry, and few people would
want to read about it without a
leavening of humor. I do it partly
because some readers enjoy it—and I
like to help people enjoy themselves. I
do it also partly because it increases
the number of readers—and I want
these ideas to be more widely
understood.
what signals do you suppose you
put out, especially from this blog?
Answering that would take a long

blog post; and I don’t think anyone
cares about what I think about myself.
Or at least, no one should care about
that! It doesn’t interest even me.
Dublin says:
Not sure how to use the quote

function.
I appreciate the satire and

motivation for the titles. I just think
it’d be better to acknowledge (or even
make fun of) the fact that you’re using
clickbaity tactics. Unacknowledged,
intentionally dishonest, etc clickbait is
common.
When I read an author make any

kind of sociological observation it
seems natural to me to apply that
sociological observation to the author.
Surely when you read Spent you
thought about how you yourself send
out signals, so I don’t think “doesn’t
interest even me” applies. Openness
about your own signal sending seems
to me relevant to this article.
Foster Ryan says:
I do wonder if Tantric practice still

gives one some social status. It’s
complicated and slightly inaccessible. I
see lots of people practicing one form
or another of it here in West LA.
Dzogchen and other non-dual
practices have status I think. Having a
shaman is hot too. I think the bigger
status signal right now might be
following a Paleo diet, or an ancestral
diet. Having food sensitivities and
foods you avoid are good too- it’s
slightly difficult and implies that you
are very discerning and careful and
are paying attention to your health,
but in a virile way- meat and potatoes-
meaning that you are no sissy and are
getting real. Also, it’s not cheap. Raw
foods are still really hot, and pickiness
about the kind of water you drink- I
have heard so many discussions about
this that I could never possibly count
them. It’s a little hard to see out of my
own bubble, but those are the things
that seem to be happening on the
westside of Los Angeles- unless you’re
a vegan, but then you are back to the
weak and ineffectual thing again, and
are probably also doing mindfulness
Doing hatha yoga is also important,
and walking around in yoga clothes,
talking about the yoga retreat you
went to in Maui is good too. Detox
diets. Raw vegan detox diets even
better.
David Chapman says:
Interesting, thanks!
I follow a Paleo/ancestral diet,

loosely—mostly because it’s tasty and
funny rather than because I believe it
has health effects. I didn’t know it had
status value too!
Since I practice tantra AND Paleo, I

must have VERY high status! Yay!
mtraven says:
Buddhism isn’t daring and sexy

and hip anymore; it’s your batty
aunt’s quaint, harmless, old-fashioned
hobby.
Maybe that’s a good thing. You will

find people getting into Buddhism for
other reasons than being daring and
sexy and hip — maybe better ones. I
have no personal stake in Buddhism
but have felt something similar about
quite a few other things I have been
into.
Of course I am just trying to signal
my superiority by claiming to be above
normal signaling practices.
Foster Ryan says:
Thinking about this while I sat and

did my Tantric practice with my lama
at the Tibetan Buddhist center I go to,
looking forward to my paleo dinner at
home (when I should have been
focusing) this evening I was thinking
back to when I was investigating
spiritual approaches maybe a dozen
years ago here in LA. I can remember
quite distinctly that it was all about
Nondual teaching- of whatever
tradition- such as dzogchen. It was also
all about tantra. I never really heard
anybody rave about mindfulness-
that’s almost a medical treatment now,
and it was huge in psychology circles. I
remember lots of zen talk in the 70s
and 80s though. It really does all seem
to be about tantra too. I guess the
prestige has in fact switched to tantra-
it’s definitely more rarified; it’s more
complicated to learn; it involves
languages like Sanskrit and Tibetan
and the Himalayas; you can take
exotic trips to investigate it; you have
lots of stuff to learn too, which puts
others off and makes you look smart I
suppose. It doesn’t seem to be so much
about weird America gurus like in the
60s though- it’s more serious now-
perhaps the authentic lineage thing
gives you more credibility, and
protects you from weird cult
assumptions. It also means you are
likely to have a smaller and more
intimate community experience. I
know a lot of film types like it- we have
some very upper crusty types who
come to our center, and a child of a
very famous celebrity couple. It must
be cool in their circles I’d suppose.
Anyway, it occurs to me that that
dzogchen Tantric type teaching, and
similar types from other traditions, is
quite likely where the opinion leaders
are in fact going at this time. That’s
what was happening when I was
heavily looking around and I don’t
think it has changed. In Asia this stuff
was upper crusty too.
semnyisun says:
I had visionary mushroom trip

experience once when I was 21 relating
to the line of Dalai Lamas and Tibet,
snow lions and wheel of fire in the sky
and everything, it’s funny you posted
most of the time because I was
listening to Oh Mercy on head phones
during that trip. Anyway, that’s why I
decided to take the Kalachakra
empowerment with HH, for me it’s got
nothing to do with who you think is
ethical and everything to do with who
you think is a tantric adept.
fiona says:
Thank you for this series. I’ve (sort

of) given up on Buddhism after
attending various sanghas/retreats/
talks, etc. I just couldn’t take the bland
Unitarian-ness of it all.
I want to ask you about metta,

because I feel like it ties into your
point about agreeableness — but I
believe you’ve cited metta specifically
as something you have found valuable
in Buddhism (correct me if I’m
wrong).
It seems to me that some of the
qualities of the exemplary Western
Buddhist (and those promoted
specifically as products of “metta”)
also overlap with the conventional
desirable female traits of being ever
loving, extremely empathetic,
unrelentingly friendly, even towards
those who cause harm, etc. Most
liberal educated American women
aren’t willing to admit that they feel
guilty about not being agreeable
(feminism made that uncool!).
Basically, I think Buddhism provides a
secular-leftist-approved rationale for
women to hold themselves to the ideal
of being likable 100% of the time, to
everyone, which is exhausting and
unhelpful. (This also ties into your
point about Western Buddhism as an
expression of Protestantism; metta as
taught in Bay Area sanghas sounds a
lot like Jesus’ love to me).
I would be interested in knowing

how/if you think metta could be of real
value, rather than just reinforcing
over-agreeableness (gendered or
otherwise).
David Chapman says:
mtraven —
Maybe that’s a good thing. You
will find people getting into Buddhism
for other reasons than being daring
and sexy and hip — maybe better
ones.
I hope so! My fear is that 20 years of

Consensus hegemony has trained
everyone to think “Buddhism? Lame
personal-advertising strategy from the
1990s”—even people who would get
into it for good reasons if they knew
what it actually can be.
David Chapman says:
Foster Ryan — Thanks, these are
very interesting observations!
The post I have scheduled for

Friday discusses the ways Tantra
combines working-class and
aristocratic values (both historically
and in the present). It’s interesting to
know that it’s still appealing to the
upper classes in L.A.; I wasn’t really
aware of that.
David Chapman says:
fiona — Thanks for these comments,

which are insightful and (for me)
slightly uncomfortable!
I’ve (sort of) given up on

Buddhism after attending various
sanghas/retreats/talks, etc. I just
couldn’t take the bland Unitarian-ness
of it all.
Come over to the dark side!
I want to ask you about metta,

because I feel like it ties into your
point about agreeableness — but I
believe you’ve cited metta specifically
as something you have found valuable
in Buddhism (correct me if I’m
wrong).
You have caught me in a polite lie.

Most of the time, I am disagreeable
when appropriate, but occasionally I
slip and am nice when I shouldn’t be.
I have not ever actually practiced

metta. I have practiced lojong, tonglen,
and chöd, and did find them valuable.
I included metta in the list in a
misguided attempt to be ecumenical
and say something nice about the
Consensus. I had been tempted to say
something snarky about metta, and
suppressed that.
I have read (somewhere) that the
metta practice taught in America was
invented by Sharon Salzberg, and has
no specific ancestry in traditional
Buddhism. I don’t know whether this
is correct. (If someone knows, or
tracks it down with a web search, I’d
be interested to hear.)
Since I have not actually practiced

it, I can say only that, from a distance,
it looks to me like you are correct
here:
It seems to me that some of the

qualities of the exemplary Western
Buddhist (and those promoted
specifically as products of “metta”)
also overlap with the conventional
desirable female traits of being ever
loving, extremely empathetic,
unrelentingly friendly, even towards
those who cause harm, etc. Most
liberal educated American women
aren’t willing to admit that they feel
guilty about not being agreeable
(feminism made that uncool!).
Basically, I think Buddhism provides a
secular-leftist-approved rationale for
women to hold themselves to the ideal
of being likable 100% of the time, to
everyone, which is exhausting and
unhelpful.
Did you read the essay by Nella Lou
I linked in the footnote about the
feminization of American Buddhism? I
suspect you’d find it to your taste.
roughgarden says:
It’s from the Karaniya Metta Sutta:

The Hymn of Universal Love
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/
authors/buddharakkhita/
wheel365.html
also found here, as The Discourse on
Loving Kindness, original Pali with
translation
http://
www.londonbuddhistvihara.org/
Karaniya%20Metta%20Sutta.pdf
semnyisun says:
Interesting comments about

Shambhala and that Nyingma
Dzogchen community being classist
roughgarden. Shambhala is the only
sangha I’ve really been involved in to
any extent, there is not much else here
in St. Johns. But its Dzogchen mostly
that I gravitate towards, if your going
to be a Buddhist you might as well aim
for the highest and sexyist eh. But
yeah… For a working class Joe like me
forking out for a trip to Sutrayana
Disneyland is not really a high
priority, which is fine, I learned about
all I needed to learn doing the first 5
levels, I always knew how to take it to
level 11 anyway. I find Shambhala is
still a great place to go and sit, and the
people and teachers I’ve met have
been uniformly great, but yeah, I have
issues with fealty too David and I dont
want to interfere in other peoples
paths… Sometimes the dark side is
more fun, there have been times at
church where I’ve been like, wait a sec,
I’ve got a drawer with shrooms, acid,
and ecstasy waiting for me at home,
when does the real party start… I
might just have the attention deficit
disorder, im lazy and I get bored with
practice easily… Love
Frank D says:
Thank you so much for these

articles. Very enlightening. I live in a
very liberal/leftward part of the US
where “buddism” is frequently being
pushed even in schools to promote
“tolerance” and “open-mindedness”.
Seems to be gaining ground as a tool

for many to mask guilt and nihilism.
roughgarden says:
“The post I have scheduled for
Friday discusses the ways Tantra
combines working-class and
aristocratic values (both historically
and in the present). It’s interesting to
know that it’s still appealing to the
upper classes in L.A.; I wasn’t really
aware of that.” Surprised? I’m not.
A study of religious membership in

the US shows that San Jose, California
is the most Buddhist city, followed by
Boulder, Colorado. Hawaii is the state
with the highest percentage of
Buddhists, followed by California. Los
Angeles has 70,000 Buddhists, with 145
Buddhist centres. Recent projections
are that Los Angeles will become the
epicentre of US Buddhism.
Check the map in the Huff-Post

article.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/
2012/11/10/most-and-least-buddhist-
cities-in-america_n_2098813.html
The Buddhist sect with the most

members in the US is Insight
Meditation Society, right? Wrong. It’s
Soka Gakkai Int’l, with 330,000
members. SGI is originally a Japanese
Nicheren sect which has no connection
to IMS or Theravada. IMS claims
20,000 members. I was told Shambhala
has 10,000 members in the US. I can’t
find any stats on Zen affiliation.
Pew’s study of “Whites who are

Buddhist in the US” has some
interesting results:
http://www.pewforum.org/religious-
landscape-study/religious-tradition/
buddhist/racial-and-ethnic-
composition/white/
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Foster Ryan says:
Roughgarden, that was interesting.
It’s clear that California and the west
coast are the epicenter. In one way it’s
obviously partially a result of the
region having the largest Asian
populations, but not only. It seems to
me that Buddhism is the Asian
tradition settled on as a respectable
alternative to Judeo-Christian
traditions. It just works better than the
other Asian traditions, although there
are still plenty of Hindu tradition
practitioners here, but Indian religion
brings a lot of challenging baggage
with it, although it is clearly rich in
good qualities. Hindu practices still
make one a little suspect, push the
vegetarianism too much, and are too
culturally Indian for easy adoption
among regular people, of whatever
class. Buddhism is intellectually
acceptable, considered compatible
with science, and heavily supported in
the holistic and psychotherapeutic
community. I think that the large
presence of Asian populations forms a
powerful economic foundation for the
propagation of Buddhism. They have
money and they spend it to build
temples and sponsor teachers. A lot of
the Vajryayana events and centers are
heavily populated by Asians, especially
the Chinese. Vajrayana seems to have
a lot of prestige in these populations. A
large percentage of my center is Asian
American- maybe 40%- and this in a
white majority area, but not only white
of course- along with African
American and white folks, and a few
latinos. We had conversations about
moving from the white Westside for a
better location and one of the
arguments was to move to East LA
somewhere, where the Chinese
population would heavily support us.
We do have Chinese sangha members
from the area and they say that there
would be a lot of support over there
among their friends. As somebody put
it, for them to be Vajrayana
practitioners is like for a white person
to be Episcopaean or Catholic. It’s
respectable and makes them
upstanding members of society. It’s
interesting that there was some
mention on your page of a Nyingma
Dzogchen group being the pinnacle of
the social ladder. That’s a trip on an
idea, but I can see it as possible. It has
great clout as the pinnacle of
teachings, and more doable for non-
monks, and the least puritanical.
roughgarden says:
Thanks, Foster, It’s really great to

have some ‘on the ground’ first hand
accounts to correlate with the
numbers. I was told that in the
Dzogchen community I was in that
there were a significant number of
wealthy Chinese members. These are
the global elite who can afford
international jet travel to an exclusive
two-week retreat with the guru. The
sangha headquarters is in Seattle, so a
lot of people were flying in from the
East. However, when I saw photos of
people who went on these retreats,
they were, almost to a person, white
people, mostly women, between the
ages of 60 and 80 years old, quite a bit
older than some other Vajra/Dzogchen
sanghas. That doesn’t discount what
you saw in the sanghas in the Los
Angeles area, but it’s just the makeup
of this particular group, wealthy
retirees, the ‘golf and cruise’ set.
Foster Ryan says:
Roughgarden: Oh, that’s not the
case here at all. Ages range from
college age to 80s. Ethnically
everybody. We have poor to rich.
Every class type seems comfortable
there. One person lives in their car a
lot of the time, another ex-homeless
African American in public housing,
computer programmers, a bunch of
acupuncturists and psychotherapists,
lots of Asian women from everywhere
in Asia, French, lesbians, gay men,
married, single. People tend toward
intelligent and tidy. Some bring their
kids to tsoks. The Bhutanese
community with their families show up
for tsoks and events. The events are
fun and everybody gets a bit drunk.
We have a chod tsok tomorrow night
and I’m sure lots of us will drink too
much and have a lot of fun. Not overly
leftie/hippie. Maybe my lama sets a
pretty balanced tone. He is Bhutanese
and has a family and is a pretty
balanced guy. I’d say that my guess is
that this sangha is fairly representative
of most sanghas in the area for this
type of tradition based on the crowds
at events I’ve gone to.
David Chapman says:
Wow, that sounds great!

Would you mind telling us who your
Lama/Sangha are? (I think you may
have done so before but I’m afraid I’ve
forgotten.)
Foster Ryan says:
Khenpo Sonam at Lhundrup

Choling. You know him from Pema
Osel LIng where he used to live and
work.
David Chapman says:
Oh, wonderful! Somehow I had

completely forgotten that. He gave me
lots of useful advice when I was going
on pilgrimage to Bhutan. Wonderful
teacher; I’m very glad he now is
reaching a larger group of students
than when I knew him.
Shane says:
Hi David, and thanks for this great

series.
“Similar people enjoy each

others’ company, and getting accurate
information about other people’s
personalities allows us to form like-
minded communities.”
I think consumption/signalling is a
lot about the person you want to be.
You become a Buddhist not just to
signal you are agreeable, but to try
and become more agreeable, so that
signalling of being agreeable has better
validity (as Miller argues, personality
signals can get busted pretty quickly).
My observation is that the reason

for the popularity of consensus
Buddhism (and the vogue for
mindfulness meditation) is that it is a
religion/practice of self-help. It’s a
therapy, People who are low in
emotional stability want to be higher
in stability – less stressed and neurotic,
more calm and happy. If you are guilty
about being a mean person who shouts
at your kids, Buddhism (in theory)
offers a route to being more nice (and
we know nice people are more happy).
If you a bit disorganised, absent
minded, easily sidetracked,
procrastinate, and don’t always
achieve your goals (low
conscientiousness), meditation offers a
path to becoming a better you, to
become a concentration master and get
your act together and get shit done.
So people gravitate to be with like

minded people, but they also gravitate
to the promise of being the people they
want to become – with role models in
the personality displays of wise,
emotional stable and nice Buddhist
teachers. Though in practice they end
up hanging out with the neurotic like
minded people who want to be less
neurotic – the people that make up a
lot of Buddhist retreats (non-neurotic
people tend not to feel the need to
spend much time and money to be
become less neurotic).
Within Buddhisms, there are

different types that match personality
type – aro is very extrovert and open,
zen very introvert (and some forms
also quite closed), though again here,
rather than the appeal of “like-minded
people”, attraction to particular
Buddhist forms may often involve
aspiration for your self-development.
Or in the case of retreats, some
extroverts might want to introvert-out
for a while. Closed minded people
might want to become more open
minded.
“By “Buddhism is for losers” I

mean that, at this point, saying you are
a Buddhist is likely to signal that you
are loser in the eyes of many people
who, a couple decades ago, would have
been impressed. For them, “Buddhist”
now means “well-intentioned but
ineffectual”; someone who can’t get
their stuff together enough to do
anything significant or interesting.”
Right, because successful happy

with meaningful lives don’t tend to
turn to religion to fix themselves and
find meaning (at least in the secular
societies of modern Europe).
Unsuccessful unhappy people who
struggle with meaning may look for
for “answers” such as the turn to
Buddhism, because they need to fix
themselves, because there is something
wrong with them (or least they think
that), because they struggle with
navigating the modern world, ergo,
losers. Losers with middle class, white
person problems (I say that as a white
middle class person who likes
Buddhism!)
And so from a marketing point of

view, this isn’t good for Buddhism. In
my society as a male – individualistic,
hedonistic Britain – the perception of
needing a crutch – a life coach, a self-
help book, following a teacher,
Buddhist group, is seen as beta. And so
in terms of signalling, this makes
Buddhism (and future Buddhisms?) a
hard sell for the current generation (at
least in England).
Dan says:
Shane: “If you a bit disorganised,
absent minded, easily sidetracked,
procrastinate, and don’t always
achieve your goals (low
conscientiousness), meditation offers a
path to becoming a better you, to
become a concentration master and get
your act together and get shit done.”
Huh. Do you know of any specific

practices that are supposed to do that?
Zen-style shikantaza meditation has
done some things for me, but that was
not one of them–and lord knows I
could use the help!
David Chapman says:
Shane — Thank you! Those insights

all seem right to me.
Shane says:
Dan – it would be nice if meditation

did those things! But my comment was
more on the sales pitch, or what lay
people think meditation will do – in
part due to the way mindfulness
meditation is often marketed – in
practice meditation doesn’t do all
those things, In fact, it can do the
opposite (e.g. rather than becoming a
better you, realising that there is no
you, just an undifferentiated energy
field…).
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mariearamos says:
October 12, 2015 at 10:40 am
Shane – so tell us about the non-

neurotic, non-losers. What are those
people like? Did they manage to get
raised in extremely happy families?
Are they all at ‘Stage 5’ (see David’s
next post for the definition of Stage 5)?
Assistant Village Idiot says:
Wonderful article. I forget what

track led me here, and the back-button
doesn’t tell me. I have posted it at my
own site. I am an evangelical Christian
of the CS Lewis/GK Chesterton type,
and have made similar points over the
years about about signalling in
popular Christian culture versus
traditional Christian practice. I work
at a state psychiatric hospital, and the
professionals there, especially social
workers, psychologists, nurses, and
occupational therapists, have strong
leanings toward what you refer to as
Consensus Buddhism – an insipid
signalling of niceness and moral
superiority. I have known a very few
over the years who seemed to be
Buddhist with more rigor and self-
awareness, and with those I have
found some common understanding.
The others are like the unrigorous
Christians (mostly Unitarian and
Episcopalian up here), who subscribe
to the Bernie Sanders school of all-
religions-teach-the-same-thing.
I also note, in contrast to a critic

here, that you could not have written
this had you not already directed the
searchlight pretty strongly on yourself
before looking at others. That is very
CS Lewis/Screwtape Letters/On The
Reading of Old Books – of you.
My disagreements are down at the
level of quibbles, and it may be that
people whose religions actually are
different are never fully able to make
that final handshake. Centers are
rather like greased watermelons,
perhaps. I would note only that your
reading of history includes more late
20th C conventional wisdom than is
quite justified. Still, I don’t have a
specific era to counter with that
doesn’t have equal blind spots.
If something brilliant occurs to me,

I’ll bring it back.
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Emerich says:
October 20, 2015 at 10:35 pm
Very interesting, quirky, and

enjoyable post. As a meditator
working in the financial industry, I am
constantly put off by the uniform
ignorance of the Buddhist community
about economics, and the resulting
foolishness of many of their
pronouncements. That includes, ahem,
the end of your post, about the
certainty of the end of work because of
technology, a certainty that started
with the industrial revolution. But this
time it’s different! See if you are still
so certain after you ponder and
understand why a country like the U.S.
could go from one with 50% of the
population in farming to 2% in 100
years with no increase in
unemployment, or why the conveyor
belt, mechanization, and
robotocization of industry haven’t led
to 90% unemployment. Homework:
what adjustments had to take place to
create employment to replace dying
industries, and why does new
employment in new industries seem to
materialize exactly as fast as old
employment and industries die?
Suppose a hyper-D supercomputer
available to each of us could create all
the food and things we use today for
free on demand. Would that guarantee
unemployment for all? Are you really
so certain that times are different and
technology will finally deliver
unemployment dystopia?
Sorry for the rant. Anyway, I’m

delighted to have discovered your blog,
as you are willing and able to be
provocative, and with a sense of
humor.
David Chapman says:
October 20, 2015 at 10:53 pm
Emerich, thank you very much!

Glad you enjoyed it.
I have no particular beliefs about

how the economy will develop; I was
pointing to some typical longer-term
scenarios—utopian as well as
dystopian. The actual evolution may
likely be less drastic than either.
Whether it includes massive voluntary
unemployment or not, I have no idea.
I’ve read plausible arguments both
ways.
I do think that the structure of the

economy changes drastically every few
decades; which does lead to shifts in
signaling strategies. I have no certainty
about what they will be, but I’m
certain there will be changes.
Roger Strider says:
This was so interesting! Thank you

for writing it. I’ve never really
considered signalling like this (barely
considered it at all really). I’ve not
really read anything lately that
explains so much of what we
experience around us as this.
Fool says:
October 31, 2015 at 10:34 am
Use all new Bodhi Pong – the aroma
of Enlightenment that drives the
tantrikas wild !
Alf says:
” Individuals who buy “fair trade”

products just want to signal; they
don’t actually care whether it benefits
poor people thousands of miles away,
so they don’t bother to check.”
Is this fair ? Seems like an over

generalisation, and also forgetting it
might not be a case of not bothering to
check but rather not having the time
to. If nobody was checking, you
wouldn’t know about the scandals and
hidden agendas. Plus, I think many do
care, it’s not just about signaling –
could be less so in America than
elsewhere.
Absolutely fair. The takedowns on

“fair trade” are common internet
stuff. I might go so far as to allow that
part of signalling is “getting the word
out,” (though that’s also an easy
excuse), and it might rise as high as
“I’d like to do something, and I can’t
find anything better to highlight the
issue.” But that’s still pretty small
beer.
If your first response to this line of

thought, with no pause or disclaimers
is “oh no, that can’t be right; many
people are quite sincere in these
things,” then I am worried you won’t
ever hear bad news about your own
tribe.
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Argoes says:
Some really astute comments on the
middle classes there. It applies equally
outside the US.
“Conspicuous blandness—the
absence of distinctive taste—is typical
of the middle middle class. If you know
you cannot pass a test of independent
opinion, it’s the next-best strategy. If
you admit no atypical passions, no one
can needle you about them, so you can
simulate emotional stability. Also, in a
situation where you aren’t sure even
what the consensus opinion is,
expressing none at all is safest.”
I’ve never seen this stated
succinctly, if at all, yet I see this
behaviour regularly.
Alf says:
“If your first response to this line of

thought, with no pause or disclaimers
is “oh no, that can’t be right; many
people are quite sincere in these
things,” then I am worried you won’t
ever hear bad news about your own
tribe.”
I’ve bought fair trade in all

sincerity, but possibly in naivety. As
for the others, they’re all bastards :-)
I do, however, assume that at least a
portion of fair trade deals are bent,
because suppliers are often too poor to
bother with Western consumer
niceties, and middle men like
corruption. Maybe I underestimate
that proportion.
Dunno, have to look it up.
Terry Davis says:
I asked God if the World was

perfectly just. God asked if I was
calling Him lazy. In the New
Testament, there is a little understood
phrase where Paul says we are not
bound by law, but are we going to be
sinners? If you believe in reward and
punishment in this life, like Dante’s
Inferno. Nothing matters. Do what you
like and rest assured you will be
rewarded or punished. I believe
pleasures are generally designed to
balance with pains. I drink a ton of
diet soda. Am I not moral? Relax, I’ll
probably get cancer and if not, it’s
God’s business. With my belief in
justice, I mostly feel like keeping my
mouth shut. There’s really no reason
to enlighten simple people who believe
in right and wrong. If I don’t help the
poor, maybe people think I am a
Satanist. It’s hard to explain that they
will be rewarded, but it’s just not my
thing. God said war was servicemen
competing. An evolutionist’s jaw might
drop and suddenly not be so fond of
evolution.
So your solution is not to think very

hard, but tell people about it.
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Steve Alexander says:
April 21, 2016 at 1:56 am
related: http://
www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/
2016/jan/20/virtue-signalling-putdown-
passed-sell-by-date
David Chapman says:
April 21, 2016 at 9:16 am
Thanks! Not surprising that political

opinion columnists would prefer that
people not understand why they read
political opinion columns. The
popularity of the phrase “virtue
signaling” is probably cutting into
their business (and their self-image).
Somewhat relevant, from a couple
days ago: Influencing Myself:Self-
Reinforcement Through Online
Political Expression:
Political expressions on social

media and the online forum were
found to (a) reinforce the expressers’
partisan thought process and (b)
harden their pre-existing political
preferences. Implications for the role
the Internet plays in democracy will be
discussed.
Joogipupu (@joogipupu) says:

August 19, 2016 at 7:46 am
Out of procrastination, and for the
reason that my physics simulation code
tests take time, I finally read this whole
text and connected conversation
through…
What I noticed is, that this pattern is

not something what I really recognize
happening in my country (Finland).
Buddhism as a social signalling has
never really been meaningful.
This is partially perhaps connected

to the Finnish culture, as it is socially
usually viewed that matters of
religious belief are very private and
you would not discus them in casual
conversation. This would apply also to
the Protestant Lutherans Christians –
the most conventional of religions. I
have the impression that in the United
States people are much more open
about their religious views.
I could imagine two, a bit connected,

reasons for this lack of pattern. First,
compared to the United States,
Finland has been a strange periphery
region which has meant, at least before
the internet, that ideas and fads would
travel slowly here. I think people in
general got interested in Buddhism
much later, though I am not sure of
the timeline. It would not have carried
much significance for the baby
boomers in 1960s – there were other
movements which were popular.
Second, Finland experienced a

shocking level of socio-economic
change during the decades after the
WWII. The whole country turned
from farming and forest industry into
high tech (i.e. Nokia). The role of the
social classes would be very different,
and also what it means to be politically
“left” or “right”.
These two things would mean that

the demographics of Buddhism would
be different in many ways, too time
consuming to characterize.
I see boomer generation people

more in the groups connected stuff like
Theosophy. When it comes to the
Buddhist groups I know the best, like
the Finnish Aro Sanga (I am an
Apprentice), the Danakosha Dharma
Center (http://www.danakosha.fi/) and
the Helsinki Shambhala group, the
average age of the participants is
clearly bellow the boomer generation.
This also applies to the other groups I
know less well.
Personally I became a Buddhist

because I was interested in all kind of
occult stuff and mysteries of
consciousness. Signalling has never
been the issue.
I have perhaps repeated some of this

elsewhere, but I hope my analysis
could be beneficial to others in terms
of perspective.
David Chapman says:
August 19, 2016 at 2:36 pm
Thank you! This is consistent with

what I’ve heard about Buddhism in
Finland from several Aro students.
Definitely very different from
America, and in promising ways.
August 20, 2016 at 3:09 am
Yes. I find that the fact that even in

so-called Western countries there is no
single monolithic situation for this
gives hope for the future of
Buddhism. :)
However, although the situation is

different where I live, it is interesting
to read what you write. It is still the
case that most of the Buddhist books
etc. written by westerners come from
the Anglo-America language area.
Therefore, whatever is written in US
has huge impact to the general opinion
what Western Buddhism should be.
Before actually involving myself

with traditional Buddhism and things
like Aro gTér, therefore getting to
know the subject in depth, I was
certainly plagued by Consensus
Buddhist stereotypes. Buddhism
appeared like some kind of a fuzzy feel
good philosophy, without any actual
fun, lacking either shape or taste.
It took me a while to realize that

reason I had these bad stereotypes,
was because “Western Buddhism” had
taken this huge 2500 year old
tradition, and reduced it from the most
of the cool or challenging parts to
make it fit for certain kind of people I
could not connect with. — If I want
inoffensive, tasteless, plain and
acceptable religion with a lot of “I am
a proper normal person” signalling,
there is the state supported Finnish
Lutheran Church. Why I would need
Buddhism for that?
It is especially sad to see a lot of

stories and legends discarded because
those contain things like supernatural
elements. We can of course argue
$10^{666} \mathrm{Myr}$ what is
true and what is not, but there is
emotional significance to many of those
stories, and such things matter as they
make life and practice interesting.
Ha. I intended to write just a short

answer, but then I just kept going. I
guess I am in a ranting mood. :D
cesar camba says:
It seems to me that the boundary

between bland agreeability and
indifference is porous.
Dr Martina Feyzrakhmanova says:
April 18, 2017 at 10:46 am
Reblogged this on Thinking Clearly

and commented:
Buddhism is incredibly interesting

to study, especially through a Western
lens. David Chapman makes an
interesting argument here about
Buddhism as a form of virtue
signalling.
His sobering argument applies to

much more than Buddhism too.
Dr Martina Feyzrakhmanova says:
April 18, 2017 at 11:29 am
Very interesting article.

Question: as Buddhism is to the
1960s, X is to 2017. What, in your
opinion, is X?
Suggestions: you may enjoy N.

Taleb’s ideas about social class today.
He has a blog on Medium.
April 18, 2017 at 3:19 pm
You pack a lot into a small space

Martina! Yes, NNTaleb, on many
topics. He overshoots and overplays at
times, but he is more solid and original
than just about anyone out there.
Fascinating question you pose. The
quick answer is “spirituality,” though
Buddhism and UU still hold sway. My
worry is that the answer is
increasingly “Nothing beyond current
popularity.” It is not an aggressive
nothing as online atheists sometimes
present, but a vagueness and inability
to even conceive of what the current-
event morality does not include.
Careerpassionyogi says:
April 19, 2017 at 4:12 am
Very thought provoking. I don’t

think Buddhism sends quite the same
signals in the UK, as the only people I
know who describe themselves as
Buddhists have spent months in
retreat, changed their names, meditate
for hours a day, and do right-
livelihood type work. But growing
your vegetables is an obvious signal in
my community, very time consuming,
quite boring,a bit expensive, and
obvious signals about health,
environmental consciousness and non-
materialism. Sadly, my veg patch is a
mess, but planting it over would
probably signal having completely
given up on these attributes.
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Zla'od says:
Brilliant article, and hits very close
to home. (My Buddhist affiliation
began in 1990 / 1991.)
Many of the same observations

could be made about the Baha’i
religion, which attracted upper-
middle / upper class “Episcopalian”
types from about 1898 to the 1960s,
then hippies later. Major differences:
(1) the Baha’is have a solid,

inflexible hierarchy (think
Mormonism), while the Buddhists are
very decentralized
(2) the Baha’is promote a well-
defined mix of “liberal” social values
(e.g. anti-racism, some feminist
rhetoric) alongside a “conservative”
personal ethic (e.g. no alcohol, sex only
within heterosexual marriage) which is
policed to some extent. Buddhism
imposes no real restrictions on belief
or behavior (and I have not
experienced much in the way of peer
pressure, either), but primarily
attracts Western liberals / leftists.
(3) the Baha’is maintain a clearly-

defined (but easy to cross) boundary
between members and non-members,
whereas anybody can call themselves a
Buddhist. A few Buddhist groups are
considered heretical by other Buddhist
groups. ALL Baha’i groups other than
the main group are considered
heretical by that group.
It’s hard to get reliable membership

information from the Baha’is, but like
Western Buddhism, they seem to have
peaked during the 1990s. This is
awkward for them, because they
generally expect their religion to
continue growing until it conquers the
world, so to speak. Buddhists, by
contrast, entertain no such
expectations.
Nemo Outis says:
March 19, 2018 at 5:19 pm
This is provincial, meandering, and

naive.
In the first, you haven’t sufficiently

experienced the places you’ve lived or
lived sufficiently diverse places. You
misrepresent both the dynamics of
political identity and the interactions
between divided social classes.
For the second, take a course that

will discipline your writing. You make
arbitrary, unsupported, and worst of
all unnecessary claims throughout this
work. I thought you were at least
justifying some of those in footnotes,
but was disappointed. Instead, you
usually wandered further from your
point.
And for the last, diversify your

experiences and education. Find works
that oppose the views you believe
yourself to currently hold. Read them
closely. Compose counterarguments
them (or amend your beliefs, but it’s
important to be realistic about these
things) write reviews that address the
points those opposing works make.
And subject your argument to the least
agreeable and most rigorous crucible
you can find.
That said, this piece is better than
silence or private thought. It is good
that you have wrote it. Please do
better. Perhaps you already have.
March 22, 2018 at 1:16 pm
This looks like a spam criticism,

because it provides no identifiers that
it is directed to the actual article. And
“It is good that you have wrote it” is
rather suspicious. I didn’t know there
were such things as generic criticisms
sent out blindly. I can’t imagine why
someone would bother.
David Chapman says:
March 22, 2018 at 1:41 pm
Oh, that’s an interesting possibility

that hadn’t occurred to me!
I thought it was just content-free

superciliousness from someone with
ego problems. I considered deleting it
as useless and potentially irritating to
readers, but I don’t have time to
moderate comments currently, so I
didn’t bother. (Probably I should turn
commenting off here, as I have on my
other sites.)
There’s no links, which suggests it’s
not spam… but maybe it was a failing
attempt at spam by an incompetent…
I guess I’ll leave it here as an

entertaining minor mystery!
“Buddhist ethics”: a Tantric critique
“Buddhist ethics,” as I’ve pointed out

in recent posts, has nothing to do with
traditional Buddhist morality. Instead,
it’s indistinguishable from mainstream
leftish middle-class American secular
morality.
This page points out disagreements
between contemporary “Buddhist
ethics” and a Tantric Buddhist view,
for several reasons:
I think, at these points of conflict,

Tantra is ethically correct, and
“Buddhist ethics” is wrong.
Western Buddhist Tantra was
suppressed in the early 1990s partly
because of these conflicts. Explaining
the Tantric view may help reopen a
door that has been closed for two
decades.
An attractive, genuinely Buddhist
alternative to “Buddhist ethics” might
be possible.
Middle-class American secular
values are failing many people—but
are taken for granted, with no obvious
alternative available. Tantra might be
a weapon for throwing them off and
constructing a more satisfactory way
of being.
Tantric Buddhism includes a complete

rejection of mainstream (Sutric)
Buddhist morality. However, since
“Buddhist ethics” is not that, most of
the traditional Tantric critique is
irrelevant.
Instead, this is a brief critique of

certain leftish secular views, common
in Consensus Buddhism, from a
Tantric perspective. It’s not meant to
be comprehensive, and I will make no
detailed arguments. I want to give the
flavor of a Tantric alternative.
This is also not a general critique of

leftism. And, although Buddhist
Tantra rejects some leftist views, that
does not make Tantric Buddhism
rightist. Nor am I a rightist personally.
Buddhist Tantra rejects many rightish
aspects of Sutric Buddhism, such as its
sex-negativity, misogyny, and anti-
world attitude. Those are not part of
current “Buddhist ethics,” however, so
they don’t need to be discussed further
here.
There is a widespread
misunderstanding that Buddhism is
inherently leftist, or particularly
compatible with leftist views. Jeff
Wilson and Brad Warner have
explained why this is mistaken, so I
don’t need to go into that here.
I’ll discuss:
Puritanism
Mentalism and sincerity
Universalism
Rejection of authority
Middle class values
These are all closely related to each

other, because they’re all rooted in
Calvinism, which has a powerfully
consistent internal logic.1
Puritanism: the war on fun
A highlight of my time as a Wiccan

Neopagan was the culminating ritual
of a week-long retreat. The ceremony
evolved by stages into two hundred
witches dancing naked around a
bonfire for hours after midnight. It
was a sublime, transformative
experience.
It is unthinkable that anything similar

might happen on a Consensus
Buddhist retreat. But why? What
Buddhist principle would it violate?
The ritual violated every principle of

Sutrayana. But nobody practices that
in America. What of Consensus
Buddhism? That is not anti-nakedness,
anti-dancing, anti-bonfires, or anti-
staying-up-late. Or is it?
Such a ritual would be too much fun.

You might have frighteningly strong
emotions. You might lose control. That
would be undignified and awkward.
Someone might see you having too
much fun, and would judge you for it,
and you’d feel awful the next day.
These are not Buddhist criteria. They

are Puritan criteria. They are
American middle class public morality
—which is mainly Puritanism, lightly
revised to reflect improved
contraceptive technology.
The 1960s American New Left defined

itself as against Puritanism. Consensus
Buddhism, with roots in the New Left,
follows—but only rhetorically. Here’s
Sharon Salzberg, blithely
contradicting two central principles of
traditional Buddhism:
In Buddhist teaching, morality does

not mean a forced or puritanical
abiding by rules. Morality means
living with intentions that reflect our
love and compassion for ourselves as
well as caring for others.2
In contemporary use, “puritan”

usually means “anti-pleasure” (and
especially “anti-sex”), but this is
historically incorrect. Puritanism was
more-or-less the English branch of
Calvinism. It did not condemn
pleasure, but was wary of it as a
temptation to sin. It explicitly
recommended pleasures, of the right
sorts, in the right situations, in the
right quantities, with the right
intentions. Marital sex was not merely
allowed but religiously required.
Sexual pleasure was considered a
special gift from God, and a husband’s
impotence was sufficient grounds for a
woman to obtain a divorce. Alcohol in
moderation was considered Godly;
public drunkenness was not.
Ironically, Salzberg’s intention in

denying “puritanism” was to reject
renunciation, the central principle of
Sutrayana; and to endorse, in its place,
the central principle of actual Puritan
morality!3 And this substitution of
puritanism for renunciation is the
heart of Consensus “Buddhist ethics,”
as I’ve argued earlier.
Reveling in sensual pleasure is a

central principle of Tantra. In the
Sutrayana milieu, this entailed a
thorough rejection of renunciation.
Consensus Buddhism’s rejection of
renunciation draws it away from
Sutrayana, in the direction of Tantra.
However, American puritan
inhibitions compel the Consensus to
reject Tantra’s unrestrained
enthusiasm as well. Enjoying yourself
too much is unseemly. It’s just not nice
—even when no harm is done to
yourself or others.
I believe contemporary Vajrayana

offers weapons we can use to liberate
ourselves from unconscious puritan
attitudes.4 I think moderation in
pleasures, emotional constriction, and
measuring out life in teaspoons are
ethically wrong. Enjoyment is good, in
any quantity. More is better! Take it to
the max—and beyond!
Two puritan fears inhibit us. The first

is that intense enjoyment must lead to
harm. “That ritual sounds extremely
problematic. Probably everyone drank
way too much, and some had
inappropriate sex they regretted in the
morning. You should be mindful at all
times, lest you harm yourself or others.
That was the traditional meaning of
the Fifth Precept.”
Tantra emphasizes personal

responsibility, and basic sense and
sanity. Tantra is not hedonism—the
antonym of puritanism in current
usage—but only because it recognizes
actions have longer-term
consequences. Seeking immediate
pleasure without regard for
consequences is simply stupid. If you
drink too much, expect and accept the
result. Don’t blame the ritual’s
leaders; no one forced you to do that.
You should know your own limits and
act accordingly. “We shouldn’t hold
revels on Buddhist retreats because
some people would do stupid things”
gives stupid people veto power over
the religious practice of responsible
people. That’s morally wrong, in my
opinion.
The second fear is social judgement.

Puritanism encourages everyone to
police everyone else’s enjoyment. I
think that is also morally wrong.
If I can offer just one piece of ethical

advice, from this whole series on
“Buddhist ethics,” it is this:
Do not judge, censor, condemn, or

ridicule anyone else (not even those
bad people!) for enjoying things you
consider “problematic,”
“inappropriate,” or just don’t like
yourself.
“Problematic” could be an expression

of genuine moral concern. Too often,
though, it’s just an expression of self-
righteous judgmentalism. Those bad
people enjoy the wrong things, and too
much. “Inappropriate” may conceal
simple envy.
Learn to accept other people enjoying
things you dislike—or that your social
group rejects. Then learn to enjoy
their enjoyment of those things. This is
entirely possible! You may then come
to enjoy those things, too—if you have
the courage to engage in pleasures
your social group disparages. You may
find the only reason you thought you
disliked them is that “people like you”
aren’t “supposed to” like them. You
may also find you truly don’t like them
—and that’s also fine. You can still
enjoy other people’s enjoyment of
them.
Mentalism vs. practicality
Buddhism makes a big fuss about
“compassion.” Compassion leads to
good intentions. But there, mostly,
non-Tantric Buddhism stops. There
seems to be an implicit assumption
that if you feel compassion for
someone, you’ll magically be able to
benefit them.
The South Park underwear gnomes

had a brilliant business plan:
Steal underpants
???
Profit!
Bodhisattvayana—the Buddhist path

of compassion—is similarly brilliant:
Compassion
???
Save all sentient beings!
Something is missing: how do you save

all sentient beings? Less fancifully,
how can you help other people?
Bodhisattvayana has almost nothing to
say.
For Bodhisattvayana, Consensus
Buddhism, Calvinism, and
contemporary secular morality, the
important thing is having
appropriately pious attitudes—such as
compassion. I call this “mentalism.”
Also, you must verbally express those
attitudes; I call that “sincerity.” For
these ethical systems, what you
actually do, and practical
consequences, are secondary. (I’ve
written about a book on the limitations
and defects of mentalism and sincerity;
its relevance to Tantra should be
obvious.)
The opposition of some leftists to

pollution permits is an elegant
illustration. A permit policy sets the
total amount of pollution allowed—at
whatever level is necessary to prevent
catastrophic global warming, for
example. Each permit allows you to
emit a set amount of pollution; you can
buy more permits if you want to emit
more, or sell some if you can emit less.
However, the number of permits is
limited to the total amount allowed.
Barring illegal cheating, this
guarantees that no more will be
emitted, and trading ensures that the
goal is accomplished with minimal
economic disruption.5 This is a
practical solution.
For certain leftists, this is an

abomination. It allows bad people to
continue having bad mental states. It
fails to recognize that pollution is
immoral. In fact, it explicitly says that
pollution is allowed!6 Industry
executives can continue to run their
businesses for profit, just as they did
before. It does not force them to adjust
their attitudes. It does not replace
capitalist greed with compassion. The
practical consequences of permit
policies are uninteresting; what is
important is that they don’t improve
intentions.
Buddhist Tantra is more interested in

practical actions and their
consequences than in moral attitudes.
It was invented specifically to fill in the
blank step 2 in “Buddhist ethics.”
Where Bodhisattvayana speaks of
“wisdom and compassion,” Tantra
often speaks of “wisdom and method.”
To be fair, Consensus “engaged”

Buddhism (unlike traditional
Sutrayana) recognizes the need for
practical action. As I discussed earlier,
it borrows both the Christian charity
model and the New Left political
protest model. Though usually well-
meaning and sometimes helpful, I find
both morally suspect; I suspect neither
is particularly effective; and I observe
that neither is distinctively Buddhist.
Petteri Sulonen has written a brilliant
post against Buddhist charity.
Doing it right requires a deep

understanding of the specific problems
being addressed, excellent
organizational skills, gobs of common
sense, and massive sensitivity to the
people being helped. I know people
who have spent most of their lives
doing such things, and one thing I hear
quite consistently is that starry-eyed,
well-intentioned amateurs can make a
huge mess of things… Competent
professionals should be in charge, and
amateurs should ask them if there’s
some way they can help.
This resonates with Tantra’s emphasis
on mastery of methods and acceptance
of legitimate authority.
The Consensus Buddhist political

approach consists mostly of being
noisy and obnoxious about your
morally judgmental mind-states. How
often is that actually helpful, and how
often does it just satisfy the drive for
self-righteous condemnation of those
bad people?
I would like to offer a contemporary

Tantric alternative—but I can’t do
that yet. I will make some vague
suggestions in upcoming posts. Here,
I’ll just say that Tantra offers a
distinctively Buddhist approach to
practical action on behalf of others.
Figuring out how to adapt that to our
culture may not be easy, but seems
very worthwhile.
Egalitarianism: equal how?
Egalitarianism underlies ethical

universalism and rejection of
authority. Egalitarianism was
unknown in all traditional Buddhisms;
it’s an accomplishment of the
European Enlightenment and
Protestant Reformation.
In all pre-modern civilizations,

different castes were governed by
different rules. The upper castes had
greater privileges and fewer
restrictions and obligations; the
opposite was true for the lower castes.
By modern standards, this is obviously
wrong. Enlightenment egalitarianism
was a rejection specifically of the
European caste system7 of hereditary
roles. In eliminating most privileges of
the aristocracy, and the oppression of
serfs and slaves, this was—in my view
—unambiguous progress.
However, people differ in many ways,

and individuals are not factually equal
in abilities. Different people should not
always be treated equally, by law,
custom, or morals, either. For
example, accommodations should be—
and are—made for people who cannot
walk. As another, if you are
sufficiently mentally retarded, you are
considered “incompetent” to
participate in a legal defense. For your
protection, you cannot be convicted or
punished. Standard criminal law is
suspended, and an alternate system
applies.
“Everyone is equal” is often valuable

as a slogan, as an expression of the
moral value of fairness. But to treat
everyone equally would be highly
unethical in many cases. We should,
and do, apply higher ethical standards
to people with greater intelligence,
education, power, and responsibility.
The most that can be said is “for
certain purposes, most people should
be treated the same way, with certain
exceptions.”
Questions about which ways people

should be treated the same, despite
factual differences, and in which ways
they should be treated differently, are
unsettled—and, obviously, highly
political.
Universalism: one size fits all
Moral universalism is the idea that a

single set of norms should bind
everyone equally.
Catholicism and traditional Buddhism

do have universalist tendencies: they
treat most adult males similarly for
certain religious purposes. However,
neither opposed slavery, the local caste
system,8 the secular power structure,
or patriarchy; and both gave some
men special religious status, with
distinctive privileges.
Universalism is a Protestant and

Enlightenment innovation. “Every
man his own priest” eliminated the
religious privileges of the clergy.
Rejecting different moral
requirements for different groups was
part of smashing the European caste
system.
“Buddhist ethics” (i.e. contemporary

secular morality) is universalist. A
single system is supposed to apply
identically to everyone.
Factually, however, people differ in

their cognitive and moral abilities. (I
will discuss this extensively in my next
post.) A simple, clear-cut, unsubtle
ethics is suitable for those of lesser
ability. Holding them to complex,
ambiguous, sophisticated ethical
standards that they cannot understand
is wrong—even if the more advanced
system is more correct in the abstract.
Fundamentalism is right for many
people, because black-and-white rules
are what it takes to keep them from
gross immorality.
Tantra recognizes differences in

ability, and prescribes different codes
for different people. The lay precepts
are suitable for those who lack the
revulsion necessary for Hinayana.
Vinaya is suitable for those who lack
the compassion necessary for
Bodhisattvayana. The Bodhisattva
vows are suitable for those who lack
the courage necessary for Vajrayana.
Tantric samaya vows bind only
tantrikas. For most people to take
samaya vows, or even Bodhisattva
vows, or even vinaya, would be
harmful and wrong.
Each yana’s vows are more difficult

than the previous one’s. Each yana’s
vows also override the previous one’s.
The samaya vows often contradict
vinaya. That doesn’t mean vinaya is
wrong, or that tantrikas should go out
of their way to violate every vinaya
rule as often as possible. It means that
tantrikas are held to a different, more
difficult standard, which takes
precedence in cases of conflict.
In this respect, Tantra resembles stage
5 of Kegan’s moral developmental
framework, which is the subject of the
next page. Tantra takes Sutric codes of
morality as objects and relativizes
them. It is, in part, about how to relate
to multiple ethical systems; that is the
hallmark of stage 5.
I don’t think any of these Buddhist

codes of conduct are useful now, other
than to hardcore Buddhist
practitioners. In particular, Tantra is
far from offering a fully-developed
stage 5 ethics.
However, I believe the general Tantric

approach of advocating different
ethics for different people is right. A
following page suggests that “Buddhist
ethics” is a stage 3 system, and highly
suitable for people at that
developmental stage. More
sophisticated ethical systems are
appropriate for other people; I’ll
sketch implications for contemporary
Buddhism.
All must be equally powerless
Consensus Buddhism is infected with a

confused, extreme egalitarianism that
wants to reject all authority and all
personal power. This has roots in
radical leftism and in Protestant anti-
clericalism.
Some political radicals have detailed

theories about why all power is bad
and how society would operate better
without it. However, almost no one—
including almost no Consensus
Buddhists—takes those stories
seriously. It’s obvious there’s no
connection with reality. Still,
hyperegalitarianism operates as a
vague felt sense and moral ideal.
Everyone reluctantly recognizes that
power and authority are necessary,
but still wants to condemn and
undermine them on principle. (Which
principle? You probably won’t get a
coherent answer to that.)
Consensus Buddhists, like other
Calvinists, have no priests. That
wouldn’t be nice at all. Everyone is
equal here! Of course, like other
Calvinist sects, the Consensus has
pastors, who are officially not priests.
They just act as priests. But they
aren’t priests, so that’s all right…
Maybe? The subterfuge is a bit too
obvious; so the power of Consensus
leaders is minimized. I expect this
limits their effectiveness.
Developing and exercising power, for

the benefit of others, is a main goal of
Buddhist Tantra. Buddhist Tantra
does also have priests (lamas), who are
not religiously equal to everyone else.
Personal power is a tool that can be

used for good or ill. Power is effective
but dangerous. However, most tools
are dangerous if misused. It is nice to
imagine that powerless people could do
as much good without the danger, but
we have no idea how.
Buddhist Tantra’s acknowledgment of

the value of power, and its unequal
priests, make it unacceptable to the
Consensus mindset. It was largely for
these reasons that the Consensus
suppressed modern Tantra. I’ve
discussed these issues at length
previously, so I won’t say more here.
Tantra: liberation from middle class
values
Unlike Consensus Buddhism, Tantra is

not middle class. It is not interested in
being respectable—and that is the
essential middle class value. It strongly
contradicts other ones, including
puritanism and sincerity.
Censoring public expressions of desire

and enjoyment is a middle class value
because it demonstrates the ability to
postpone gratification and to cooperate
harmoniously. Those abilities are often
valuable, but should not—in my view
—inhibit us when they are not
relevant. Working class people, and
upper class people, exhibit
unrestrained desire and enjoyment—
which middle class people find off-
putting.
The relationships between the

Consensus, Tantra, and class are not
coincidental. They have deep historical
roots. For several centuries, early
Buddhism was mainly a religion of the
upper middle class: bankers,
manufacturers, and owners of global
import/export companies. That is the
Buddhism of the Sutras. Only later did
significant numbers of peasants
convert as well.
Early Tantra apparently9 combined
two disparate lineages, both inimical to
middle class values. The “father
lineage” derived from royal coronation
ceremonies, and contributed the
aristocratic arrogance of yidam and
abhisheka. The “mother lineage”
derived from the shamanic sex and
death cult of reviled outcaste women.
They contributed the ecstasy and
horror of karmamudra, ganachakra,
and rites of liberation.
Tantra’s vivid iconography combines

these two threads as well. From the
father lineage, there are figures of
extraordinary grace; those appear
“classical” to the Western eye because
they are actually based on Ancient
Greek models. The imagery of the
mother lineage is straight out of a
tattoo parlor, or off a skateboard:
skulls in flames, daggers through
hearts torn from living chests, and
demonic naked women with
implausible proportions. (Many
graphics I use on Buddhism for
Vampires are actually tattoo flash.)
These violently contradictory
aesthetics may combine harmoniously
in a single work of art.
Despite periodic attempts to

domesticate it, Tantra continued to
embody both aristocratic and lower
class values throughout its history—
and has been shunned by the middle
class. Also, despite constant attempts
by the aristocracy to reserve its
practices for themselves, whenever
their grip has loosened, it has been
seized by marginal people as a route to
personal power.
The modern Buddhist Tantra of the

1970s-80s was particularly attractive
to working class people. (From my
personal experience, many of both
Chögyam Trungpa’s and Ngakpa
Chögyam’s students were working
class; I’m not sure about the other
teachers.) Consensus Buddhism was
almost exclusively middle class (to its
egalitarian dismay)—although that
seems to be changing recently.
To a middle-class sensibility, Tantra

seems simultaneously vulgar and
uncomfortably elegant. Vulgar means
“things lower-class people like, which
people in my class would be
embarrassed to admit enjoying.”
Uncomfortably elegant means “uses
signals of a class higher than mine,
which I wouldn’t attempt for fear I’d
screw them up.” Hotel and restaurant
advertisements often pitch their
“lifestyle experiences” as “casually
elegant.” This oxymoronic phrase is
code for “we’ll provide you with status
signals from a class above yours, but
we’ll make sure you don’t get dissed
for using them incorrectly.” A tantric
retreat might include both
considerable scatalogical humor and
an elaborate banquet for which formal
attire and courtly etiquette are
required. This is the antithesis of
“casual elegance.” It’s an insult to
middle class pretensions.
I believe Tantra can help us escape the

limitations of the restrictive middle
class world-view. Technological
changes are making those values
increasingly dysfunctional. The
twentieth century economic deal—
conform to Protestant work ethics and
you’ll have a comfortable life—has
been broken. In a dystopian
extrapolation, nearly everyone will end
up working class, with no middle class
ladder up. In that case, hard work and
self-restraint are a chump’s game. In a
utopian scenario, robots will do all
unpleasant work, and a basic income
scheme will free everyone to enjoy
themselves and create cool stuff. In
that case too, delayed gratification is
less important. We should adopt the
working class attitude of “I want
intense fun NOW!”, plus the
aristocratic aesthete’s sustained
determination to create and appreciate
the best.
At their best, Tantra’s aristocratic

values engender nobility, which I take
as its ultimate aim. Let us all treat
each other as aristocrats—not as
shopkeepers, bureaucrats, or
corporate drones. We all have the
potential to be powerful, kind, and
extraordinary—and Tantra can help
us fulfill that possibility.
It’s amusing, and perhaps

illuminating, to view Consensus
Buddhism as a mildly eccentric
Protestant Christian sect that replaced
Palestinian fairy tales with Indian
fairy tales. ↩
The Force of Kindness: Change
Your Life with Love and Compassion,
pp. 66-67. The two principles this
passage contradicts are renunciation
and the rejection of self-cherishing. If
Sutrayana has an essence, those
together might be it. ↩
Earlier on her same page: “The
world may tell us to grab as much as
we want… but how about being really
radical and questioning how much we
need?” That’s a classic puritan
sentiment. It’s worth noting that the
Puritans defined themselves, and were
defined by others, as political, as well
as religious, radicals. Their politics, as
well as their morality, had more in
common with contemporary leftism
than you might imagine. ↩
The 1960s New Left began with a
rejection of puritanism, but that was
mainly reversed within the left by the
1980s. Consensus Buddhism is an
example of leftish culture re-
embracing puritanism. Currently,
there are precious few ideologies that
echo 1960s anti-puritanism. Sex-
positive feminism and Neopaganism
are two. ↩
In practice, permit schemes have
had mixed results. Some have
succeeded—for example the American
acid rain reduction program. Others
have failed, due to cheating, loopholes,
corruption, and/or setting the total
amount allowed too high. ↩
In fact, pollution permits are neatly
parallel to the indulgences issued by
the Catholic Church. Indulgences were
widely (if inaccurately) understood as
permits to sin a certain amount,
purchased for money. Condemning
indulgences was one of the first, main
acts of the Protestant Reformation. ↩
The European hereditary class
system of the aristocracy, gentry,
freemen, serfs, and slaves is also a
caste system, although that term is not
usually applied to it. I say “is” not
“was” because remnants are still
enforced by law. For example, some
members of the British aristocracy still
have distinctive legal privileges by
birth. ↩
Some modern Buddhisms claim that
traditional Buddhism opposed the
caste system. This is a Victorian
invention. There are some scriptural
passages in which the Buddha says
caste is religiously irrelevant, which is
not the same thing; and there are
many passages in which he takes caste
for granted. All pre-modern Buddhist
countries had some kind of caste
system. See for instance Gombrich’s
Theravada Buddhism, pp. 30, 49, 70.
↩
Historical uncertainties remain.
Indian Esoteric Buddhism: A Social
History of the Tantric Movement and
Kiss of the Yogini: “Tantric Sex” in its
South Asian Contexts are sources for
this view. ↩
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“Buddhist ethics” is neither Buddhist

nor ethics. “Buddhist ethics” is a
fraud: a fabrication created to deceive,
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it is not, for the benefit of its creators
and promoters. “Buddhist ethics” is
actually a collection of self-
aggrandizing strategies for gaining
social status within the left…
Sutra, Tantra, and the modern
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My last post contrasted Buddhist

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supposed to be a summary of non-
Tantric Buddhism. In future posts, I’ll
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reflects actual Buddhisms such as
Theravada and Zen. Here, I compare
Sutra and Tantra from the point of
view of modern secular humanism.
In…
Reinventing Buddhist Tantra
A conversation has begun about what

post-Consensus Buddhisms could be. I
will join in by suggesting renewed
Buddhist Tantra as a possibility.
Tantra aims in a direction many
people want to go—quite a different
direction from mainstream Buddhism.
So its goal is inspiring; and its path
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Author of the book Meaningness and

several Buddhist sites. View all posts
by David Chapman
Author David ChapmanPosted on
October 9, 2015Categories Consensus
Buddhism, Reinventing Buddhist
TantraTags Buddhism, egalitarianism,
ethics, personal responsibility,
puritanism, social class, tantra,
universalism, Vajrayana
31 thoughts on ““Buddhist ethics”: a
Tantric critique”
sadhvi says:
I’m interested in your analysis of

Tantra and class. In my experience
with Tantra (both in India and in the
US), class issues were not as you
describe them. I don’t recall, for
instance, very many actual “working
class” folks following Trungpa. There
were a number of folks pretending to
be working class just as there were a
number of folks in SDS, The
Weathermen and the early days of
Feminism, etc. pretending to be
working class. It was a way of
establishing your credentials: “I’m not
part of the establishment; I’m not like
‘the Man'”. No hip person wanted to
be identified as middle class and
nobody wanted to be identified as
upper class either; this seems to be an
attitude peculiar to Americans. In
India (in my experience with tantric
practitioners from Sri Lanka and
Chennai), the caste system was
implicit. The “lower classes” were
there to be, essentially, “used” by the
higher classes and women, especially,
were there to be used by all. The
language was egalitarian; the reality
was not. One of the problems seems to
be the belief that people, by the time
they get to the level of Vajrayana, will
have arrived at a level of realization
that will ensure that their actions will
be skillful. I think history has show
that this is not an accurate perception
of how it plays out.
RoughGarden’s take on the future
of Buddhism yesterday seemed sadly
accurate to me .
John Willemsens says:
Reblogged this on Advayavada

Buddhism.
David Chapman says:
sadhvi —
I don’t recall, for instance, very
many actual “working class” folks
following Trungpa. There were a
number of folks pretending to be
working class
Interesting, thanks! You may have a

more accurate take than me; I arrived
after he’d died.
tantric practitioners from Sri

Lanka and Chennai
Is this Buddhist or Hindu? I would

expect Hindu tantra to be more caste-
conscious than Buddhist tantra,
although I gather Sri Lankan
Buddhism is highly caste-conscious
too.
The language was egalitarian; the

reality was not.
This is true of Tibetan Vajranaya as

well. I value Vajrayana for its claimed
principles, much more than for the
reality of its social practice in pre-
Chinese-invasion Tibet.
Religious ideologies are always

appropriated to support the local
social norms. (My critique of
“Buddhist ethics” is pointing this out
for Consensus Buddhism.) However,
they can also undermine them;
Protestantism is a dramatic example,
in its day. I hope Buddhist Tantra has
resources that could correct some
dysfunctional aspects of current
American culture.
sadhvi says:
Hi David,
The tantric teachers I mentioned
were Hindu. My experience was that
they unfortunately affirmed what I
had already experienced in Vajrayana.
The “claimed principles” are never
quite what one encounters. The whole
cultural context is important. If there’s
an idea of creating something
different, we’d better be aware of just
how much of the “original” teaching
we are referring to is culturally
conditioned and, even more
importantly, what our own culture has
conditioned us to accept as true. Even
the idea of transparency or what it
means to be open is culturally
conditioned. It takes a lot of precision
to tease these things out and it takes a
real willingness to look at our own
culturally conditioned blindspots, not
just the obvious heavy hitters like
“greed and consumption” or “the
marketing of spirituality”. I’m
thinking more of the great American
myths of individuality and power that
get played out over and over again
(and in virtually all “liberation”
movements here). It’s not abstract.
Tantra offers tools, yes, but would you
give a blowtorch to a three year old?
Seems like that might be already
happening in some parts of the
country (hey, maybe that’s what’s
causing all those wildfires). Then that
brings up the same old problem: who
decides who’s “ready” for those
“advanced teachings” or, if it’s totally
“egalitarian”, what state are folks in
who are part of your sangha. Maybe it
IS better to do it all online…less real in
some ways but safer too…smile.
David Chapman says:
sadhvi — Thanks, yes, these are all

good points. It is not obvious how best
to proceed, which is why I can offer no
highly-specific recommendations for
modern Buddhist tantra. I do think
experimentation could be valuable.
Pingback: Broken Buddha | The
Dharmasar Solution
Al Billings (@makehacklearn) says:
It seems strong to say that tantra

was “suppressed” in the 1990s unless
you know of some organized efforts
that I’ve never heard of.
David Chapman says:
Yup, I do. Writing about that was in

the outline, but it ended up on the
cutting room floor, along with a lot of
other historical stuff.
fripsidelover9110 says:
“such as its sex-negativity,

misogyny, and anti-world attitude.”
Is misgyny an aspect of Sutric

Buddhism? I think not. It’s akin to
saying that Western enlightenment is
pro-eugenics, racism, colonialism,
imperialism because there were many
western thinkers of enlightenment who
agreed to those aspects. Many (if not
all) founding fathers of the U.S
granted slavery, but strongly
influenced by western enlightenment
as well.
Second, while I fully agree that

Buddhism has very little to say about
politics or political theory, I think
sutric Buddhism is compatible with
leftist views in many respects as well as
rightist views. For example, Chinese
used Buddhism for pacifism
propaganda (No war & invasion of
china, but peace~) against Tibet in
Chinese Tang dynasty period.
Buddhism was also used for
egalitarian policy propaganda for
commoners (since a truly Buddhist
King is supposed to have compassion,
have to do something to lessen
suffering of his subjects).
Of course, Zen was used for

nationalistic, pro war propaganda by
the imperial Japan ( a well-known
story). But it’s arguably much easier to
justify pacifism with Buddhist
scriptures than pro-war propaganda.
Maybe the only leftist political
agenda which sutric Buddhism is in
direct conflict with would be ‘pro-
abortion’ policy. Even homosexuality
has been treated ambivalently within
sutric Buddhism, in other words, there
are two opposing trends toward
homosexuality in Buddhism. All-in-All,
I think one can argue that
homosexuality should not
discriminated because any sex (free
from misconduct) is EQUALLY bad
from Buddhist point of view.
Interestingly, Korean Buddhism has
highest ratio in granting
homosexuality among 4 groups, (1)
Korean Buddhism (2) Korean
Protestantism (3) Korean Catholic (4)
No religious affiliation, even though
Buddhism is usually associated with
cultural conservatism (No sex, No
drinking, No abortion, pro-tradition
tendency) in Korea.
David Chapman says:
Is misogyny an aspect of Sutric

Buddhism?
Yes. I wrote about that here. It’s

unambiguous, I think.
I think sutric Buddhism is

compatible with leftist views in many
respects as well as rightist views.
I agree.
Tsül'dzin says:
Hi David, I’m enjoying all these

posts. I didn’t understand your
comments about class, for example
‘Working class people, and upper class
people, exhibit unrestrained desire and
enjoyment—which middle class people
find off-putting.’ Are these
commments being from a north
American position?
David Chapman says:
October 11, 2015 at 10:38 am
Hi Tsül’dzin, nice to see you here!
‘Working class people, and upper

class people, exhibit unrestrained
desire and enjoyment—which middle
class people find off-putting.’ Are these
commments being from a north
American position?
This is a common sociological

analysis (not any insight of my own). I
think I’ve read it applied to Britain,
but I’m not sure. I think I’ve also
heard Ngak’chang Rinpoche say
something similar!
As with any sociological claim, it’s

just a generalization, of course.
Individuals within a class vary
dramatically, based on personality,
specifics of experience, and so on.
Specific situations may also make
different expressions seem appropriate
or not.
csabahenk says:
October 11, 2015 at 12:21 pm
Hi David, probably you omitted tag

“ethics” from this post by mistake.
(I’m just organizing the ethics series
for myself for offline reading, and I
just saw that this post is not among
those if I select by tag.)
David Chapman says:
October 11, 2015 at 12:32 pm
Thank you! Fixed! (WordPress’s tag

management UX sucks.)
roughgarden says:
The following is meant as a general

comment on this whole series, not just
this post. It’s a selection from an
interview with B. Allan Wallace,
“Tibetan Buddhism in the West: Is it
working here? An Interview with Alan
Wallace”, by Brian Hodel. Published
in Tricycle: The Buddhist Review,
Summer 2001.
http://www.alanwallace.org/
Tricycle%20Interview.pdf
Q: In the monastic setting, teachings

follow a coherent order. What’s the
effect of teaching outside this format?
A: In the West, it is very common
that a lama will pass through a city
and give a tantric Buddhist initiation
and a weekend of esoteric teachings on
visualization practices or ways of
experiencing a state of pure awareness.
What’s missing here in the vast
majority of cases is the profound
context: the theoretical context, the
context of faith, the context of a
mature spiritual community. The
teachings themselves, though perfectly
traditional, are being introduced in a
radically non-traditional context. And
this, I think, has on numerous
occasions led to terrible
misunderstandings and a great deal of
unnecessary conflict, unrest, confusion
and suffering.
Q: Such as?
A: Back in the late 1970s some very
fine lamas came to this country and
gave a number of advanced teachings.
A lot of the Westerners in attendance,
young men and young women, got very
enthused by these lamas who were
teaching in concert, and a number of
them, right off the bat, were ordained
right then and there with no context
whatsoever, with no monastery, no
abbot, and no proctor to teach them
the vows and help them to assimilate
and apply the vows in daily life. I think
the vast majority, if not every single
one of that group, eventually returned
their vows, because there was no
context for them and they entered into
it with little understanding of the step
that they were taking.
Q: Why not just stick to basic,

foundational teachings? Why are these
high teachings even given as
introductions?
A: I think the simple answer is: if
lamas confined themselves to teaching
topics such as ethical discipline,
renunciation, and the cultivation of
loving kindness and compassion few
people would come. Before going on
tour, lamas often ask what kind of
teachings Westerners would like, and
the response is often a request for
advanced teachings, say on Dzogchen
or Mahamudra, which are concerned
with exploring the nature of pure,
conceptually unstructured awareness,
or one’s own inner Buddha-nature.
Out of compassion and the wish to
fulfill others’ wishes, many lamas
comply. Perhaps their rationale is that
people will probably get more benefit
hearing something they are really
interested in, than in hearing valuable
teachings in which they have no
interest—in which case they probably
wouldn’t show up at all anyway.
roughgarden says:
“A: I think the simple answer is: if

lamas confined themselves to teaching
topics such as ethical discipline,
renunciation, and the cultivation of
loving kindness and compassion few
people would come.”
Wallace’s critique is that the Lamas
teach Dzogchen and tantra because
that’s what Westerner’s want to hear.
They don’t want to be bothered with
‘ethical discipline’, renunciation and
loving kindness.” That’s boring
“beginner” teachings for losers and
pussies. That whole Western attitude
has been broadcast loud and clear on
this blog.
Secondly, or really firstly, many of

these high level tantric teachings are
completely out of context in a Western
setting. The result is that tantra itself
gets watered down into a
programmatic pablum of marketable
mush for mass Western consumption.
The result is a Disneyfied “Magic
Kingdom” that is purveyed specifically
for middle class western consumption.
It has all the rituals and deities, all the
“bells and whistles,” but none of the
real spiritual guts of tantric practice. It
becomes just another social club of
eccentrics wearing funny hats.
roughgarden says:
B. Allan Wallace: Westerners want

the Fast Track to Awakeing, Drive
Through Enlightenment;
Q: Isn’t there a problem here of
appealing to the ego? I may request
the highest teachings because I want to
attain realization as quickly as
possible. But of what value are the
higher teachings if I haven’t absorbed
the basics? Isn’t that like throwing
seed on stones?
A: In my experience, lamas who are

willing to give these very advanced
teachings will strongly emphasize the
importance of the foundational
teachings and practices, such as those
concerning the cultivation of
renunciation and compassion. One of
my teachers, Gyatrul Rinpoche, has
often given advanced teachings on
Mahamudra and Dzogchen, but he
hammers home the message time and
time again: “Yes, these are profound
teachings. Yes, it can be very helpful
for you to do the practice. At the same
time, do not overlook the foundational
teachings, because these are the ones
that, in the foreseeable future, are
much more likely to really bring about
evident transformation for the better
in your own minds and in your own
lives.” Gyatrul Rinpoche has taught
for more than two decades in this
country. He still emphasizes the
foundational teachings, but at times
students complain that they have
already heard these teachings and
don’t want to hear them anymore. In
many cases, even though these
students have not realized the
foundational teachings through
practice, they’ve heard them and more
or less understood them intellectually.
But out of familiarity they have lost
interest in these teachings, no longer
wishing to practice them, and yearn
instead for something new, something
profound, something that promises to
bring about the kind of spiritual
transformation they haven’t gained so
far.
As Gyatrul Rinpoche has often

commented, it’s not that the lamas
don’t want us to hear or practice these
higher teachings. They just don’t want
us to do them instead of the
foundational teachings, because then
we’ll wind up following the more
advanced practices without benefiting
from them, while shunning the more
basic practices and therefore getting
no practical benefit at all. The advice
I’ve heard and embrace is that we
need to keep our feet planted in the
ground of the foundational teachings
and reach to the sky with the more
advanced teachings.
Q: If many Western students are

getting the higher teachings towards
the beginning but then have to go back
to the foundational teachings, isn’t this
counterproductive?
A: It certainly can be!
Q: That doesn’t sound very efficient.
A: Overall, I don’t think there is
much efficiency in the way that
teachings are taught or practiced in
the West, even though we, being a
consumer society, a business-oriented
society, prioritize efficiency. Also in the
West various lamas of all the different
orders of Tibetan Buddhism are
passing through town for weekend
events. And this means you have the
possibility of being exposed to a
hodgepodge of weekend teachings and
initiations and your exposure to
Buddhism becomes random. It’s like
going to a buffet. You pick up
whatever is coming through, but
there’s no order to it, no continuity, no
progressive development, and so
again: it’s very inefficient. This can
turn a lot of people into dilettantes, as
they acquire a “taste of the town” of
Buddhism, dabbling in one flavor after
another, without gaining proficiency in
anything.
This lack of continuity is due, in

part, to a lack of patience. As a
consumer society we want snappy
results. That’s part of what we
consider to be efficient. If we go to a
teaching we want to see results in a
weekend, or at least in a week! And
some teachers are willing to cater to
that type of mentality. I’ve even seen
advertisements for Tibetan Buddhist
events that sound like Madison Avenue
hype.
jamie s says:
Still enjoying the series! It will be

interesting to see how you pull it all
together/conclude it.
I still think you have the potential to

hit the wall of people’s interpretation
based on their stage development.
Someone who is not ready for tantra is
going to interpret tantra practices with
a sutra mind — they are going to
looking for the concrete “facts” of
practice and are going to follow those
dogmatically. Hoping that won’t
happen, though! Looking forward to
the next posts.
I’m also hoping you will speak to the

paradox of “tantric ritual/practice” –
why would a practitioner who has the
foundation of emptiness (which also
requires an embrace of full experience)
need a prescribed ritual? That’s the
part that has always hung me up when
looking at the Aro tradition. It’s full of
really smart people and dedicated
meditators/practitioners… but why do
they all have to dress up like cowboys/
cowgirls and shoot guns or arrows?
I’m not asking the experiential why
(it’s obviously fun), I’m asking the
formulaic why, i.e., why does the
costume party have one theme? What
makes for a quality tantric ritual?
Why not just go to the nightclub and
fully experience that heaven and hell,
so to speak?
Obviously these short end-of-article

comments are too short for nuance, so
I apologize in advance for questioning
so bluntly!
David Chapman says:
Thanks, jamie, these are insightful

questions!
I still think you have the potential
to hit the wall of people’s
interpretation based on their stage
development.
Definitely. Tantra is not for

everyone.
they are going to looking for the

concrete “facts” of practice and are
going to follow those dogmatically.
Yes; that’s unfortunately common. I

don’t intend to talk about any “facts of
practice,” so that’s not a problem for
me; but it’s a problem any teacher of
modern tantra faces.
My outline does include a post titled

something like “Tantra is not about
advanced practices” that would try to
dispel that misunderstanding.
why would a practitioner who has

the foundation of emptiness (which
also requires an embrace of full
experience) need a prescribed ritual?
For the same reason a competent

cook often uses recipes. A competent
cook can improvise from scratch, but
you can’t figure out everything for
yourself every time. A recipe embodies
the understanding of some other
expert who figured out something that
works reliably. Actually, recipes
almost always have a lineage; the one
you use is based on an earlier one, and
so on, so you are leveraging the
experience of many experts.
Also, when you do hit on something

that works, it’s good to write it down
and do the same thing again, because
improvisation is error-prone. Even for
yourself, following your own recipe
helps.
Also because repetition itself works

on the human brain in some way that
probably no one understands. Just
doing the same thing over and over has
a powerful effect.
why does the costume party have

one theme?
That’s an excellent question… but

as you guessed, it’s one that would
take a least a long blog post to answer!
There’s many different aspects to the
answer.
One would start: the overall

function of the event is very different
from the function of a costume party.
The function of the particular style of
clothing serves that overall function.
It’s non-arbitrary. For example, there
are Aro gTér events in which everyone
dresses in the manner of the Regency
Court of early 19th century Britain.
These “Natural Dignity” events are
ones whose function is to experience a
society in which everyone treats
everyone else as aristocrats (as I
suggested in the last paragraph of this
page). One could do that wearing
anything, but Regency dress is a
powerful pragmatic support for the
practice.
Why not just go to the nightclub

and fully experience that heaven and
hell, so to speak?
One can, certainly. But a nightclub

has a different function, so it is not
especially supportive of the practice.
It’s not antithetical to tantra, at all;
one should be able to practice tantra
there. But it’s not particularly easy,
either.
jamie s says:
Thanks for the kind response. I was

a bit worried that it would be taken
the wrong way. I’ve admired the
forthright expression of the Aro
tradition for a long time… I guess this
series has also reminded me how much
I’m looking forward to seeing what the
next generation of NC’s students
create. He created a culture of practice
which seems very “his” in its
expression, but I don’t have a sense of
how that will continue into the future.
(I suspect there are students who will
want to stay with the basic recipe and
there will be students that create their
own flavors while acknowledging the
founding inspiration…)
I guess that seque into Aro in the

midst of a discussion of ethics relates
back to the “no truths, only methods”
idea. In my mind, we should seek (and
teach) ethics that provide the merest of
scaffolding to empower opening and
extending into the world, to help us
meet the rawness of the world as best
we are capable. So in that sense, I
don’t care if it is bland middle-class
ethics or tantric… just as long a people
are (nobly) living slightly out of their
comfort zone, still growing up, still
awakening, still recognizing new
resistances and new embraces that
were unseen/unknowable just a year
ago…
I think most folks underestimate

what they are capable of — and
underestimate how easy it is to become
stagnant — which is why I am really
enjoying your putting “nice” ethics in
the spotlight and putting tantra out
there for a critical look.
Rin'dzin Pamo says:
October 12, 2015 at 10:51 am
@Jamie
Re:
“That’s the part that has

always hung me up when looking at
the Aro tradition. It’s full of really
smart people and dedicated
meditators/practitioners… but why do
they all have to dress up like cowboys/
cowgirls and shoot guns or arrows?”
Ngak’chang Rinpoche teaches on

the relationship between dress, art and
Vajrayana practice. I hope that he and
Khandro Déchen will write something
for public consumption about that…
but they have many projects.
You probably only see pictures of

those apprentices (I’m one of them)
that like to adopt dress as practice. Not
everyone has the time or the
inclination to re-invent themselves so
wholeheartedly, and nobody has to.
But regarding the way you display
yourself in the world as a practice is
possible in small, experimental bites,
and individual apprentices are
sometimes encouraged to feel what it
would be like to dress differently. The
facial topiary is connected: different
styles have associations with particular
characters of personality and
demeanour.
The Aro gTér lamas are influenced

by Chögyam Trungpa’s
encouragement of hippie students to
break away from conventions of casual
dress and anti-establishment view.
Tantra pulls the rug from under your
feet by challenging your conformity to
social and cultural convention. Ritual
of behaviour and dress can function in
this way: the structure provides
leverage out from sheep-like
conformity you didn’t previously see.
The style of dress they encourage is

any that expresses “tasteful
flamboyance and unwitheld
appreciation. We have no hippie
uniform to shed, but rather, a form of
drabness born of ‘comfort’ and ‘staid
inconspicuousness.’ ”
The style of Western wear that

Ngak’chang Rinpoche likes is late 19th
century. Like with any art, once you
get to know a field well, you appreciate
differences in style and detail. That
style is quite different to a cowboy/
cowgirl look. (I also like the latter –
Rinpoche doesn’t.) The practice is one
of individual expression, within a fixed
period style. I don’t know what
pictures you’ve seen, but I guess if you
look closely you’ll see different
individual styles of appreciation.
“I’m not asking the experiential

why (it’s obviously fun), I’m asking the
formulaic why, i.e., why does the
costume party have one theme?”
It doesn’t, but you probably only see

that theme, because it’s obviously
different in some way, and that’s how
people like to brand us. These are
pictures from apprentice gatherings
and retreats in Montana. Usually
they’re very small. I’ll be going to one
next week which will have about ten
participants, max. On most apprentice
retreats across the world, apprentices
wear what they want, within the
‘theme’ of the yogic colours – red,
white and blue.
“What makes for a quality

tantric ritual?”
This is an important question,

there’s loads to say…but probably this
isn’t the place as we’d be veering off-
topic. I sometimes think about
resurrecting my Vajrayana Now blog,
to write about such things, but it’s not
become top priority yet.
“Why not just go to the

nightclub and fully experience that
heaven and hell, so to speak?”
We do. Well, some of us, anyway.
“Obviously these short end-of-

article comments are too short for
nuance, so I apologize in advance for
questioning so bluntly!”
I think these are really great

questions, I’m glad you asked them.
RiP
Rin'dzin Pamo says:
October 12, 2015 at 10:57 am
@Jamie
I was writing my comment while
you posted yours – sorry they crossed
over.
I guess that seque into Aro in the
midst of a discussion of ethics relates
back to the “no truths, only methods”
idea. In my mind, we should seek (and
teach) ethics that provide the merest of
scaffolding to empower opening and
extending into the world, to help us
meet the rawness of the world as best
we are capable. So in that sense, I
don’t care if it is bland middle-class
ethics or tantric… just as long a people
are (nobly) living slightly out of their
comfort zone, still growing up, still
awakening, still recognizing new
resistances and new embraces that
were unseen/unknowable just a year
ago…
I like how you put this.
RiP
David Chapman says:
October 12, 2015 at 12:06 pm
He created a culture of practice

which seems very “his” in its
expression
Yes; one aspect of tantra is that one

takes the personality-display of the
lama as an aspect of the path. Since
different lamas have different
personality-displays, the mandala has
a different texture in each case.
I’m looking forward to seeing

what the next generation of NC’s
students create.
This is happening now. The younger

Aro gTér Lamas all have distinctive
personality-displays, and many are
developing their own distinctive
teachings—content as well as style. All
are consonant with the general Aro
gTér ethos, but diverse within that
lineage.
a form of drabness born of

‘comfort’ and ‘staid
inconspicuousness.’
This is the middle-middle class

display of conspicuous blandness,
which I deride in an earlier post.
tridral says:
A wonderful piece of writing. It

covers a lot of ground fairly succinctly
and is quite inspiring. Thank you. I
particularly enjoyed the working class/
aristocracy comparison. I think it’s
well put.
David Chapman says:
October 29, 2015 at 10:49 am
Thank you very much indeed for

your appreciation!
@Jamie:
Speaking of the dress and Aro gTér,

I am myself an Aro practitioner and
my lama (one of the younger ones, not
Ngak’chang Rinpoche), suggested me
to start to dress myself like a biker.
And so I did.
So not everybody looks like a

cowboy either. :)
The suggestion I got was of course a

personal one. I am a large bear of a
man, and I have an appreciation of
extreme metal music. I am also related
to Danish/Swedish Vikings – obvious if
you would see my face. Biker-like
appearance actually suits very
naturally to me.
Foster Ryan says:
I have been thinking a little about
modern cultural developments and
their convergence with Vajrayana. As
was being discussed above, a lot of
people are puzzled about why smart
people would perform rituals or dress
up in funny clothes. This, however, is
just old-people thinking- yup, all of
those questions are questions left over
from modern and post-modern
thinking habits.
The newer era of thought,
frequently called Metamodernism, and
sometimes by a sub-name for an aspect
of this post-postmodern life,
Performatism, has returned to
ritualism.
Following the logic of: pre-modern
thinking took rituals and myths as
god-ordained truth; modernism tried
to extract the essence or abandon those
things altogether to get to the real
meaning behind the rituals unclouded
by superstition; postmodernism
decided that none of them had any
meaning in the end and there is no
meaning anyway so lets just get f’ed up
and play with surface forms.
Metamodern times have returned to
play with meaning and to rediscover
depth, while knowing that they are
empty of meaning at the same time.
This is very much like the stages of
Buddhist vehicles as they develop from
the most earthy up to dzogchen (or zen
too), and dzogchen (and zen) in reality
being usually practiced within the
context of a sadhana (a ritual)- zen is
no different in actuality, only with a
different ritual structure.
Ritual is used both as a way to
transcend ones’ ego as well as a way to
maintain awareness while being
embodied in form. So, if we know that
everything has no ultimate meaning
then how are we to act? We can do this
by interpreting our actions as
performance, or as ritual. In this way
we reenchant the world while
maintaining an awareness of its
ultimate emptiness- instead of
retreating into a lethargic, paralyzed,
meaning-devoid, nihilistic, surface
worshiping stupor.
Adopting deliberate clothing and
behaviour is part of this- seeing our
world as constructed but embracing it
anyway while not losing the punch
line.
So as we reembrace ritual we
understand it with scientific eyes
without letting science dismember it;
we reenchant the world and use ritual
to help us to realize and embody the
otherwise-abstract teachings; and we
keep the vision that it is all empty
anyway without sliding into nihilism.
This is like doing a performance-
hence the use of the word
Performatism elsewhere. How else can
you act and embrace life without
making it a self-oriented and grasping
experience?
http://www.metamodernism.com/
2015/10/21/reconstruction-
metamodern-transcendence-and-the-
return-of-myth/
David Chapman says:
Foster — Thanks, this is very much

along the lines that I have been
thinking recently!
It resonates with Ritual and Its

Consequences, which I reviewed
recently.
Alf says:
“A highlight of my time as a Wiccan

Neopagan was the culminating ritual
of a week-long retreat. The ceremony
evolved by stages into two hundred
witches dancing naked around a
bonfire for hours after midnight. It
was a sublime, transformative
experience.”
Now you’re talking.

georg schiller says:
Could we say that ethics is true as

long as it increases the feelings of
peace, harmony, concentration,
gratitude and spaciousness? I mean,
there is no inherent basis for morality
but there are impacts of moral
behaviour on our human psyche.
If I show gratitude and help and
donate to others I feel good and warm.
If I talk to somebody who is going
through a “hard” time, I feel
concentrated and in harmony with
myself.
If I spend the last hours with
somebody dying, I feel spaciousness.
On the other hand, if I insult

somebody I feel hard and contracted.
If I don’t help somebody in need I feel
improsined with negative thoughts,
etc.
Would this explanation help to

understand moral behaviour? At least
ancient India apparently lived by this
dharma. More details can be found
under the subject of Gunas ->
Vedanta.
“Buddhist ethics”: a Tantric critique
“Buddhist ethics,” as I’ve pointed out in recent
posts, has nothing to do with traditional Buddhist
morality. Instead, it’s indistinguishable from
mainstream leftish middle-class American secular
morality.
This page points out disagreements between
contemporary “Buddhist ethics” and a Tantric
Buddhist view, for several reasons:
1. I think, at these points of conflict, Tantra is
ethically correct, and “Buddhist ethics” is
wrong.
2. Western Buddhist Tantra was suppressed in the
early 1990s partly because of these conflicts.
Explaining the Tantric view may help reopen a
door that has been closed for two decades.
3. An attractive, genuinely Buddhist alternative to
“Buddhist ethics” might be possible.
4. Middle-class American secular values are failing
many people—but are taken for granted, with no
obvious alternative available. Tantra might be a
weapon for throwing them off and constructing a
more satisfactory way of being.
Tantric Buddhism includes a complete rejection of
mainstream (Sutric) Buddhist morality. However,
since “Buddhist ethics” is not that, most of the
traditional Tantric critique is irrelevant.
Instead, this is a brief critique of certain leftish
secular views, common in Consensus Buddhism,
from a Tantric perspective. It’s not meant to be
comprehensive, and I will make no detailed
arguments. I want to give the flavor of a Tantric
alternative.
This is also not a general critique of leftism. And,
although Buddhist Tantra rejects some leftist views,
that does not make Tantric Buddhism rightist. Nor
am I a rightist personally. Buddhist Tantra rejects
many rightish aspects of Sutric Buddhism, such as
its sex-negativity, misogyny, and anti-world attitude.
Those are not part of current “Buddhist ethics,”
however, so they don’t need to be discussed further
here.
There is a widespread misunderstanding that

Buddhism is inherently leftist, or particularly
compatible with leftist views. Jeff Wilson and Brad
Warner have explained why this is mistaken, so I
don’t need to go into that here.
I’ll discuss:
• Puritanism
• Mentalism and sincerity
• Universalism
• Rejection of authority
• Middle class values
These are all closely related to each other, because
they’re all rooted in Calvinism, which has a
powerfully consistent internal logic.1
Puritanism: the war on fun

A highlight of my time as a Wiccan Neopagan was
the culminating ritual of a week-long retreat. The
ceremony evolved by stages into two hundred
witches dancing naked around a bonfire for hours
after midnight. It was a sublime, transformative
experience.
It is unthinkable that anything similar might happen
on a Consensus Buddhist retreat. But why? What
Buddhist principle would it violate?
The ritual violated every principle of Sutrayana. But
nobody practices that in America. What of
Consensus Buddhism? That is not anti-nakedness,
anti-dancing, anti-bonfires, or anti-staying-up-late.
Or is it?
Such a ritual would be too much fun. You might
have frighteningly strong emotions. You might lose
control. That would be undignified and awkward.
Someone might see you having too much fun, and
would judge you for it, and you’d feel awful the next
day.
These are not Buddhist criteria. They are Puritan
criteria. They are American middle class public
morality—which is mainly Puritanism, lightly
revised to reflect improved contraceptive
technology.
The 1960s American New Left defined itself as
against Puritanism. Consensus Buddhism, with roots
in the New Left, follows—but only rhetorically.
Here’s Sharon Salzberg, blithely contradicting two
central principles of traditional Buddhism:
In Buddhist teaching, morality does not mean a
forced or puritanical abiding by rules. Morality
means living with intentions that reflect our love and
compassion for ourselves as well as caring for
others.2
In contemporary use, “puritan” usually means “anti-
pleasure” (and especially “anti-sex”), but this is
historically incorrect. Puritanism was more-or-less
the English branch of Calvinism. It did not condemn
pleasure, but was wary of it as a temptation to sin. It
explicitly recommended pleasures, of the right sorts,
in the right situations, in the right quantities, with the
right intentions. Marital sex was not merely allowed
but religiously required. Sexual pleasure was
considered a special gift from God, and a husband’s
impotence was sufficient grounds for a woman to
obtain a divorce. Alcohol in moderation was
considered Godly; public drunkenness was not.
Ironically, Salzberg’s intention in denying
“puritanism” was to reject renunciation, the central
principle of Sutrayana; and to endorse, in its place,
the central principle of actual Puritan morality!3
And this substitution of puritanism for renunciation
is the heart of Consensus “Buddhist ethics,” as I’ve
argued earlier.
Reveling in sensual pleasure is a central principle of
Tantra. In the Sutrayana milieu, this entailed a
thorough rejection of renunciation. Consensus
Buddhism’s rejection of renunciation draws it away
from Sutrayana, in the direction of Tantra. However,
American puritan inhibitions compel the Consensus
to reject Tantra’s unrestrained enthusiasm as well.
Enjoying yourself too much is unseemly. It’s just not
nice—even when no harm is done to yourself or
others.
I believe contemporary Vajrayana offers weapons
we can use to liberate ourselves from unconscious
puritan attitudes.4 I think moderation in pleasures,
emotional constriction, and measuring out life in
teaspoons are ethically wrong. Enjoyment is good, in
any quantity. More is better! Take it to the max—
and beyond!
Two puritan fears inhibit us. The first is that intense
enjoyment must lead to harm. “That ritual sounds
extremely problematic. Probably everyone drank
way too much, and some had inappropriate sex they
regretted in the morning. You should be mindful at
all times, lest you harm yourself or others. That was
the traditional meaning of the Fifth Precept.”
Tantra emphasizes personal responsibility, and basic
sense and sanity. Tantra is not hedonism—the
antonym of puritanism in current usage—but only
because it recognizes actions have longer-term
consequences. Seeking immediate pleasure without
regard for consequences is simply stupid. If you
drink too much, expect and accept the result. Don’t
blame the ritual’s leaders; no one forced you to do
that. You should know your own limits and act
accordingly. “We shouldn’t hold revels on Buddhist
retreats because some people would do stupid
things” gives stupid people veto power over the
religious practice of responsible people. That’s
morally wrong, in my opinion.
The second fear is social judgement. Puritanism
encourages everyone to police everyone else’s
enjoyment. I think that is also morally wrong.
If I can offer just one piece of ethical advice, from
this whole series on “Buddhist ethics,” it is this:
Do not judge, censor, condemn, or ridicule anyone
else (not even those bad people!) for enjoying things
you consider “problematic,” “inappropriate,” or just
don’t like yourself.
“Problematic” could be an expression of genuine
moral concern. Too often, though, it’s just an
expression of self-righteous judgmentalism. Those
bad people enjoy the wrong things, and too much.
“Inappropriate” may conceal simple envy.
Learn to accept other people enjoying things you
dislike—or that your social group rejects. Then learn
to enjoy their enjoyment of those things. This is
entirely possible! You may then come to enjoy those
things, too—if you have the courage to engage in
pleasures your social group disparages. You may
find the only reason you thought you disliked them
is that “people like you” aren’t “supposed to” like
them. You may also find you truly don’t like them—
and that’s also fine. You can still enjoy other
people’s enjoyment of them.
Mentalism vs. practicality

Buddhism makes a big fuss about “compassion.”
Compassion leads to good intentions. But there,
mostly, non-Tantric Buddhism stops. There seems to
be an implicit assumption that if you feel
compassion for someone, you’ll magically be able to
benefit them.
The South Park underwear gnomes had a brilliant
business plan:
1. Steal underpants
2. ???
3. Profit!
Bodhisattvayana—the Buddhist path of compassion
—is similarly brilliant:
1. Compassion
2. ???
3. Save all sentient beings!
Something is missing: how do you save all sentient
beings? Less fancifully, how can you help other
people? Bodhisattvayana has almost nothing to say.
For Bodhisattvayana, Consensus Buddhism,
Calvinism, and contemporary secular morality, the
important thing is having appropriately pious
attitudes—such as compassion. I call this
“mentalism.” Also, you must verbally express those
attitudes; I call that “sincerity.” For these ethical
systems, what you actually do, and practical
consequences, are secondary. (I’ve written about a
book on the limitations and defects of mentalism and
sincerity; its relevance to Tantra should be obvious.)
The opposition of some leftists to pollution permits
is an elegant illustration. A permit policy sets the
total amount of pollution allowed—at whatever level
is necessary to prevent catastrophic global warming,
for example. Each permit allows you to emit a set
amount of pollution; you can buy more permits if
you want to emit more, or sell some if you can emit
less. However, the number of permits is limited to
the total amount allowed. Barring illegal cheating,
this guarantees that no more will be emitted, and
trading ensures that the goal is accomplished with
minimal economic disruption.5 This is a practical
solution.
For certain leftists, this is an abomination. It allows
bad people to continue having bad mental states. It
fails to recognize that pollution is immoral. In fact, it
explicitly says that pollution is allowed!6 Industry
executives can continue to run their businesses for
profit, just as they did before. It does not force them
to adjust their attitudes. It does not replace capitalist
greed with compassion. The practical consequences
of permit policies are uninteresting; what is
important is that they don’t improve intentions.
Buddhist Tantra is more interested in practical
actions and their consequences than in moral
attitudes. It was invented specifically to fill in the
blank step 2 in “Buddhist ethics.” Where
Bodhisattvayana speaks of “wisdom and
compassion,” Tantra often speaks of “wisdom and
method.”
To be fair, Consensus “engaged” Buddhism (unlike
traditional Sutrayana) recognizes the need for
practical action. As I discussed earlier, it borrows
both the Christian charity model and the New Left
political protest model. Though usually well-
meaning and sometimes helpful, I find both morally
suspect; I suspect neither is particularly effective;
and I observe that neither is distinctively Buddhist.
Petteri Sulonen has written a brilliant post against
Buddhist charity.
Doing it right requires a deep understanding of the
specific problems being addressed, excellent
organizational skills, gobs of common sense, and
massive sensitivity to the people being helped. I
know people who have spent most of their lives
doing such things, and one thing I hear quite
consistently is that starry-eyed, well-intentioned
amateurs can make a huge mess of things…
Competent professionals should be in charge, and
amateurs should ask them if there’s some way they
can help.
This resonates with Tantra’s emphasis on mastery of
methods and acceptance of legitimate authority.
The Consensus Buddhist political approach consists
mostly of being noisy and obnoxious about your
morally judgmental mind-states. How often is that
actually helpful, and how often does it just satisfy
the drive for self-righteous condemnation of those
bad people?
I would like to offer a contemporary Tantric
alternative—but I can’t do that yet. I will make some
vague suggestions in upcoming posts. Here, I’ll just
say that Tantra offers a distinctively Buddhist
approach to practical action on behalf of others.
Figuring out how to adapt that to our culture may
not be easy, but seems very worthwhile.
Egalitarianism: equal how?

Egalitarianism underlies ethical universalism and
rejection of authority. Egalitarianism was unknown
in all traditional Buddhisms; it’s an accomplishment
of the European Enlightenment and Protestant
Reformation.
In all pre-modern civilizations, different castes were
governed by different rules. The upper castes had
greater privileges and fewer restrictions and
obligations; the opposite was true for the lower
castes. By modern standards, this is obviously
wrong. Enlightenment egalitarianism was a rejection
specifically of the European caste system7 of
hereditary roles. In eliminating most privileges of
the aristocracy, and the oppression of serfs and
slaves, this was—in my view—unambiguous
progress.
However, people differ in many ways, and
individuals are not factually equal in abilities.
Different people should not always be treated
equally, by law, custom, or morals, either. For
example, accommodations should be—and are—
made for people who cannot walk. As another, if
you are sufficiently mentally retarded, you are
considered “incompetent” to participate in a legal
defense. For your protection, you cannot be
convicted or punished. Standard criminal law is
suspended, and an alternate system applies.
“Everyone is equal” is often valuable as a slogan, as
an expression of the moral value of fairness. But to
treat everyone equally would be highly unethical in
many cases. We should, and do, apply higher ethical
standards to people with greater intelligence,
education, power, and responsibility. The most that
can be said is “for certain purposes, most people
should be treated the same way, with certain
exceptions.”
Questions about which ways people should be
treated the same, despite factual differences, and in
which ways they should be treated differently, are
unsettled—and, obviously, highly political.
Universalism: one size fits all

Moral universalism is the idea that a single set of
norms should bind everyone equally.
Catholicism and traditional Buddhism do have
universalist tendencies: they treat most adult males
similarly for certain religious purposes. However,
neither opposed slavery, the local caste system,8 the
secular power structure, or patriarchy; and both gave
some men special religious status, with distinctive
privileges.
Universalism is a Protestant and Enlightenment
innovation. “Every man his own priest” eliminated
the religious privileges of the clergy. Rejecting
different moral requirements for different groups
was part of smashing the European caste system.
“Buddhist ethics” (i.e. contemporary secular
morality) is universalist. A single system is
supposed to apply identically to everyone.
Factually, however, people differ in their cognitive
and moral abilities. (I will discuss this extensively in
my next post.) A simple, clear-cut, unsubtle ethics is
suitable for those of lesser ability. Holding them to
complex, ambiguous, sophisticated ethical standards
that they cannot understand is wrong—even if the
more advanced system is more correct in the
abstract. Fundamentalism is right for many people,
because black-and-white rules are what it takes to
keep them from gross immorality.
Tantra recognizes differences in ability, and
prescribes different codes for different people. The
lay precepts are suitable for those who lack the
revulsion necessary for Hinayana. Vinaya is suitable
for those who lack the compassion necessary for
Bodhisattvayana. The Bodhisattva vows are suitable
for those who lack the courage necessary for
Vajrayana. Tantric samaya vows bind only tantrikas.
For most people to take samaya vows, or even
Bodhisattva vows, or even vinaya, would be harmful
and wrong.
Each yana’s vows are more difficult than the
previous one’s. Each yana’s vows also override the
previous one’s. The samaya vows often contradict
vinaya. That doesn’t mean vinaya is wrong, or that
tantrikas should go out of their way to violate every
vinaya rule as often as possible. It means that
tantrikas are held to a different, more difficult
standard, which takes precedence in cases of
conflict.
In this respect, Tantra resembles stage 5 of Kegan’s
moral developmental framework, which is the
subject of the next page. Tantra takes Sutric codes of
morality as objects and relativizes them. It is, in part,
about how to relate to multiple ethical systems; that
is the hallmark of stage 5.
I don’t think any of these Buddhist codes of conduct
are useful now, other than to hardcore Buddhist
practitioners. In particular, Tantra is far from
offering a fully-developed stage 5 ethics.
However, I believe the general Tantric approach of
advocating different ethics for different people is
right. A following page suggests that “Buddhist
ethics” is a stage 3 system, and highly suitable for
people at that developmental stage. More
sophisticated ethical systems are appropriate for
other people; I’ll sketch implications for
contemporary Buddhism.
All must be equally powerless

Consensus Buddhism is infected with a confused,
extreme egalitarianism that wants to reject all
authority and all personal power. This has roots in
radical leftism and in Protestant anti-clericalism.
Some political radicals have detailed theories about
why all power is bad and how society would operate
better without it. However, almost no one—
including almost no Consensus Buddhists—takes
those stories seriously. It’s obvious there’s no
connection with reality. Still, hyperegalitarianism
operates as a vague felt sense and moral ideal.
Everyone reluctantly recognizes that power and
authority are necessary, but still wants to condemn
and undermine them on principle. (Which principle?
You probably won’t get a coherent answer to that.)
Consensus Buddhists, like other Calvinists, have no
priests. That wouldn’t be nice at all. Everyone is
equal here! Of course, like other Calvinist sects, the
Consensus has pastors, who are officially not priests.
They just act as priests. But they aren’t priests, so
that’s all right… Maybe? The subterfuge is a bit too
obvious; so the power of Consensus leaders is
minimized. I expect this limits their effectiveness.
Developing and exercising power, for the benefit of
others, is a main goal of Buddhist Tantra. Buddhist
Tantra does also have priests (lamas), who are not
religiously equal to everyone else.
Personal power is a tool that can be used for good or
ill. Power is effective but dangerous. However, most
tools are dangerous if misused. It is nice to imagine
that powerless people could do as much good
without the danger, but we have no idea how.
Buddhist Tantra’s acknowledgment of the value of
power, and its unequal priests, make it unacceptable
to the Consensus mindset. It was largely for these
reasons that the Consensus suppressed modern
Tantra. I’ve discussed these issues at length
previously, so I won’t say more here.
Tantra: liberation from middle class

values
Unlike Consensus Buddhism, Tantra is not middle
class. It is not interested in being respectable—and
that is the essential middle class value. It strongly
contradicts other ones, including puritanism and
sincerity.
Censoring public expressions of desire and
enjoyment is a middle class value because it
demonstrates the ability to postpone gratification and
to cooperate harmoniously. Those abilities are often
valuable, but should not—in my view—inhibit us
when they are not relevant. Working class people,
and upper class people, exhibit unrestrained desire
and enjoyment—which middle class people find off-
putting.
The relationships between the Consensus, Tantra,
and class are not coincidental. They have deep
historical roots. For several centuries, early
Buddhism was mainly a religion of the upper middle
class: bankers, manufacturers, and owners of global
import/export companies. That is the Buddhism of
the Sutras. Only later did significant numbers of
peasants convert as well.
Early Tantra apparently9 combined two disparate

lineages, both inimical to middle class values. The
“father lineage” derived from royal coronation
ceremonies, and contributed the aristocratic
arrogance of yidam and abhisheka. The “mother
lineage” derived from the shamanic sex and death
cult of reviled outcaste women. They contributed the
ecstasy and horror of karmamudra, ganachakra, and
rites of liberation.
Tantra’s vivid iconography combines these two
threads as well. From the father lineage, there are
figures of extraordinary grace; those appear
“classical” to the Western eye because they are
actually based on Ancient Greek models. The
imagery of the mother lineage is straight out of a
tattoo parlor, or off a skateboard: skulls in flames,
daggers through hearts torn from living chests, and
demonic naked women with implausible
proportions. (Many graphics I use on Buddhism for
Vampires are actually tattoo flash.) These violently
contradictory aesthetics may combine harmoniously
in a single work of art.
Despite periodic attempts to domesticate it, Tantra
continued to embody both aristocratic and lower
class values throughout its history—and has been
shunned by the middle class. Also, despite constant
attempts by the aristocracy to reserve its practices
for themselves, whenever their grip has loosened, it
has been seized by marginal people as a route to
personal power.
The modern Buddhist Tantra of the 1970s-80s was
particularly attractive to working class people.
(From my personal experience, many of both
Chögyam Trungpa’s and Ngakpa Chögyam’s
students were working class; I’m not sure about the
other teachers.) Consensus Buddhism was almost
exclusively middle class (to its egalitarian dismay)—
although that seems to be changing recently.
To a middle-class sensibility, Tantra seems
simultaneously vulgar and uncomfortably elegant.
Vulgar means “things lower-class people like, which
people in my class would be embarrassed to admit
enjoying.” Uncomfortably elegant means “uses
signals of a class higher than mine, which I wouldn’t
attempt for fear I’d screw them up.” Hotel and
restaurant advertisements often pitch their “lifestyle
experiences” as “casually elegant.” This oxymoronic
phrase is code for “we’ll provide you with status
signals from a class above yours, but we’ll make
sure you don’t get dissed for using them
incorrectly.” A tantric retreat might include both
considerable scatalogical humor and an elaborate
banquet for which formal attire and courtly etiquette
are required. This is the antithesis of “casual
elegance.” It’s an insult to middle class pretensions.
I believe Tantra can help us escape the limitations of
the restrictive middle class world-view.
Technological changes are making those values
increasingly dysfunctional. The twentieth century
economic deal—conform to Protestant work ethics
and you’ll have a comfortable life—has been
broken. In a dystopian extrapolation, nearly
everyone will end up working class, with no middle
class ladder up. In that case, hard work and self-
restraint are a chump’s game. In a utopian scenario,
robots will do all unpleasant work, and a basic
income scheme will free everyone to enjoy
themselves and create cool stuff. In that case too,
delayed gratification is less important. We should
adopt the working class attitude of “I want intense
fun NOW!”, plus the aristocratic aesthete’s sustained
determination to create and appreciate the best.
At their best, Tantra’s aristocratic values engender
nobility, which I take as its ultimate aim. Let us all
treat each other as aristocrats—not as shopkeepers,
bureaucrats, or corporate drones. We all have the
potential to be powerful, kind, and extraordinary—
and Tantra can help us fulfill that possibility.
1. It’s amusing, and perhaps illuminating, to view

Consensus Buddhism as a mildly eccentric
Protestant Christian sect that replaced
Palestinian fairy tales with Indian fairy tales.
2. The Force of Kindness: Change Your Life with
Love and Compassion, pp. 66-67. The two
principles this passage contradicts are
renunciation and the rejection of self-cherishing.
If Sutrayana has an essence, those together
might be it.
3. Earlier on her same page: “The world may tell
us to grab as much as we want… but how about
being really radical and questioning how much
we need?” That’s a classic puritan sentiment.
It’s worth noting that the Puritans defined
themselves, and were defined by others, as
political, as well as religious, radicals. Their
politics, as well as their morality, had more in
common with contemporary leftism than you
might imagine.
4. The 1960s New Left began with a rejection of
puritanism, but that was mainly reversed within
the left by the 1980s. Consensus Buddhism is an
example of leftish culture re-embracing
puritanism. Currently, there are precious few
ideologies that echo 1960s anti-puritanism. Sex-
positive feminism and Neopaganism are two.
5. In practice, permit schemes have had mixed
results. Some have succeeded—for example the
American acid rain reduction program. Others
have failed, due to cheating, loopholes,
corruption, and/or setting the total amount
allowed too high.
6. In fact, pollution permits are neatly parallel to
the indulgences issued by the Catholic Church.
Indulgences were widely (if inaccurately)
understood as permits to sin a certain amount,
purchased for money. Condemning indulgences
was one of the first, main acts of the Protestant
Reformation.
7. The European hereditary class system of the
aristocracy, gentry, freemen, serfs, and slaves is
also a caste system, although that term is not
usually applied to it. I say “is” not “was”
because remnants are still enforced by law. For
example, some members of the British
aristocracy still have distinctive legal privileges
by birth.
8. Some modern Buddhisms claim that traditional
Buddhism opposed the caste system. This is a
Victorian invention. There are some scriptural
passages in which the Buddha says caste is
religiously irrelevant, which is not the same
thing; and there are many passages in which he
takes caste for granted. All pre-modern Buddhist
countries had some kind of caste system. See for
instance Gombrich’s Theravada Buddhism, pp.
30, 49, 70.
9. Historical uncertainties remain. Indian Esoteric
Buddhism: A Social History of the Tantric
Movement and Kiss of the Yogini: “Tantric Sex”
in its South Asian Contexts are sources for this
view.
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Author David ChapmanPosted on October 9,
2015Categories Consensus Buddhism, Reinventing
Buddhist TantraTags Buddhism, egalitarianism,
ethics, personal responsibility, puritanism, social
class, tantra, universalism, Vajrayana
31 thoughts on ““Buddhist ethics”: a
Tantric critique”
1. sadhvi says:
I’m interested in your analysis of Tantra and

class. In my experience with Tantra (both in
India and in the US), class issues were not as
you describe them. I don’t recall, for instance,
very many actual “working class” folks
following Trungpa. There were a number of
folks pretending to be working class just as there
were a number of folks in SDS, The
Weathermen and the early days of Feminism,
etc. pretending to be working class. It was a way
of establishing your credentials: “I’m not part of
the establishment; I’m not like ‘the Man'”. No
hip person wanted to be identified as middle
class and nobody wanted to be identified as
upper class either; this seems to be an attitude
peculiar to Americans. In India (in my
experience with tantric practitioners from Sri
Lanka and Chennai), the caste system was
implicit. The “lower classes” were there to be,
essentially, “used” by the higher classes and
women, especially, were there to be used by all.
The language was egalitarian; the reality was
not. One of the problems seems to be the belief
that people, by the time they get to the level of
Vajrayana, will have arrived at a level of
realization that will ensure that their actions will
be skillful. I think history has show that this is
not an accurate perception of how it plays out.
RoughGarden’s take on the future of Buddhism
yesterday seemed sadly accurate to me .


sadhvi —
I don’t recall, for instance, very many actual
“working class” folks following Trungpa. There
were a number of folks pretending to be working
class
Interesting, thanks! You may have a more

accurate take than me; I arrived after he’d died.
tantric practitioners from Sri Lanka and Chennai
Is this Buddhist or Hindu? I would expect Hindu

tantra to be more caste-conscious than Buddhist
tantra, although I gather Sri Lankan Buddhism is
highly caste-conscious too.
The language was egalitarian; the reality was
not.
This is true of Tibetan Vajranaya as well. I value

Vajrayana for its claimed principles, much more
than for the reality of its social practice in pre-
Chinese-invasion Tibet.
Religious ideologies are always appropriated to
support the local social norms. (My critique of
“Buddhist ethics” is pointing this out for
Consensus Buddhism.) However, they can also
undermine them; Protestantism is a dramatic
example, in its day. I hope Buddhist Tantra has
resources that could correct some dysfunctional
aspects of current American culture.
4. sadhvi says:
Hi David,
The tantric teachers I mentioned were Hindu.
My experience was that they unfortunately
affirmed what I had already experienced in
Vajrayana. The “claimed principles” are never
quite what one encounters. The whole cultural
context is important. If there’s an idea of
creating something different, we’d better be
aware of just how much of the “original”
teaching we are referring to is culturally
conditioned and, even more importantly, what
our own culture has conditioned us to accept as
true. Even the idea of transparency or what it
means to be open is culturally conditioned. It
takes a lot of precision to tease these things out
and it takes a real willingness to look at our own
culturally conditioned blindspots, not just the
obvious heavy hitters like “greed and
consumption” or “the marketing of spirituality”.
I’m thinking more of the great American myths
of individuality and power that get played out
over and over again (and in virtually all
“liberation” movements here). It’s not abstract.
Tantra offers tools, yes, but would you give a
blowtorch to a three year old? Seems like that
might be already happening in some parts of the
country (hey, maybe that’s what’s causing all
those wildfires). Then that brings up the same
old problem: who decides who’s “ready” for
those “advanced teachings” or, if it’s totally
“egalitarian”, what state are folks in who are part
of your sangha. Maybe it IS better to do it all
online…less real in some ways but safer too…
smile.

sadhvi — Thanks, yes, these are all good points.

It is not obvious how best to proceed, which is
why I can offer no highly-specific
recommendations for modern Buddhist tantra. I
do think experimentation could be valuable.
6. Pingback: Broken Buddha | The Dharmasar

Solution
7. Al Billings (@makehacklearn) says:

It seems strong to say that tantra was
“suppressed” in the 1990s unless you know of
some organized efforts that I’ve never heard of.

Yup, I do. Writing about that was in the outline,

but it ended up on the cutting room floor, along
with a lot of other historical stuff.
“such as its sex-negativity, misogyny, and anti-

world attitude.”
Is misgyny an aspect of Sutric Buddhism? I
think not. It’s akin to saying that Western
enlightenment is pro-eugenics, racism,
colonialism, imperialism because there were
many western thinkers of enlightenment who
agreed to those aspects. Many (if not all)
founding fathers of the U.S granted slavery, but
strongly influenced by western enlightenment as
well.
Second, while I fully agree that Buddhism has
very little to say about politics or political
theory, I think sutric Buddhism is compatible
with leftist views in many respects as well as
rightist views. For example, Chinese used
Buddhism for pacifism propaganda (No war &
invasion of china, but peace~) against Tibet in
Chinese Tang dynasty period. Buddhism was
also used for egalitarian policy propaganda for
commoners (since a truly Buddhist King is
supposed to have compassion, have to do
something to lessen suffering of his subjects).
Of course, Zen was used for nationalistic, pro
war propaganda by the imperial Japan ( a well-
known story). But it’s arguably much easier to
justify pacifism with Buddhist scriptures than
pro-war propaganda.
Maybe the only leftist political agenda which
sutric Buddhism is in direct conflict with would
be ‘pro-abortion’ policy. Even homosexuality
has been treated ambivalently within sutric
Buddhism, in other words, there are two
opposing trends toward homosexuality in
Buddhism. All-in-All, I think one can argue that
homosexuality should not discriminated because
any sex (free from misconduct) is EQUALLY
bad from Buddhist point of view. Interestingly,
Korean Buddhism has highest ratio in granting
homosexuality among 4 groups, (1) Korean
Buddhism (2) Korean Protestantism (3) Korean
Catholic (4) No religious affiliation, even though
Buddhism is usually associated with cultural
conservatism (No sex, No drinking, No abortion,
pro-tradition tendency) in Korea.

Is misogyny an aspect of Sutric Buddhism?
Yes. I wrote about that here. It’s unambiguous, I

think.
I think sutric Buddhism is compatible with
leftist views in many respects as well as rightist
views.
I agree.
11. Tsül'dzin says:

Hi David, I’m enjoying all these posts. I didn’t

understand your comments about class, for
example ‘Working class people, and upper class
people, exhibit unrestrained desire and
enjoyment—which middle class people find off-
putting.’ Are these commments being from a
north American position?
October 11, 2015 at 10:38 am
Hi Tsül’dzin, nice to see you here!

‘Working class people, and upper class people,
exhibit unrestrained desire and enjoyment—
which middle class people find off-putting.’ Are
these commments being from a north American
position?
This is a common sociological analysis (not any

insight of my own). I think I’ve read it applied to
Britain, but I’m not sure. I think I’ve also heard
Ngak’chang Rinpoche say something similar!
As with any sociological claim, it’s just a
generalization, of course. Individuals within a
class vary dramatically, based on personality,
specifics of experience, and so on. Specific
situations may also make different expressions
seem appropriate or not.
13. csabahenk says:
October 11, 2015 at 12:21 pm
Hi David, probably you omitted tag “ethics”

from this post by mistake. (I’m just organizing
the ethics series for myself for offline reading,
and I just saw that this post is not among those if
I select by tag.)

October 11, 2015 at 12:32 pm
Thank you! Fixed! (WordPress’s tag

management UX sucks.)

The following is meant as a general comment on

this whole series, not just this post. It’s a
selection from an interview with B. Allan
Wallace, “Tibetan Buddhism in the West: Is it
working here? An Interview with Alan
Wallace”, by Brian Hodel. Published in
Tricycle: The Buddhist Review, Summer 2001.
http://www.alanwallace.org/
Tricycle%20Interview.pdf
Q: In the monastic setting, teachings follow a
coherent order. What’s the effect of teaching
outside this format?
A: In the West, it is very common that a lama
will pass through a city and give a tantric
Buddhist initiation and a weekend of esoteric
teachings on visualization practices or ways of
experiencing a state of pure awareness. What’s
missing here in the vast majority of cases is the
profound context: the theoretical context, the
context of faith, the context of a mature spiritual
community. The teachings themselves, though
perfectly traditional, are being introduced in a
radically non-traditional context. And this, I
think, has on numerous occasions led to terrible
misunderstandings and a great deal of
unnecessary conflict, unrest, confusion and
suffering.
Q: Such as?
A: Back in the late 1970s some very fine lamas
came to this country and gave a number of
advanced teachings. A lot of the Westerners in
attendance, young men and young women, got
very enthused by these lamas who were teaching
in concert, and a number of them, right off the
bat, were ordained right then and there with no
context whatsoever, with no monastery, no
abbot, and no proctor to teach them the vows
and help them to assimilate and apply the vows
in daily life. I think the vast majority, if not
every single one of that group, eventually
returned their vows, because there was no
context for them and they entered into it with
little understanding of the step that they were
taking.
Q: Why not just stick to basic, foundational
teachings? Why are these high teachings even
given as introductions?
A: I think the simple answer is: if lamas
confined themselves to teaching topics such as
ethical discipline, renunciation, and the
cultivation of loving kindness and compassion
few people would come. Before going on tour,
lamas often ask what kind of teachings
Westerners would like, and the response is often
a request for advanced teachings, say on
Dzogchen or Mahamudra, which are concerned
with exploring the nature of pure, conceptually
unstructured awareness, or one’s own inner
Buddha-nature. Out of compassion and the wish
to fulfill others’ wishes, many lamas comply.
Perhaps their rationale is that people will
probably get more benefit hearing something
they are really interested in, than in hearing
valuable teachings in which they have no
interest—in which case they probably wouldn’t
show up at all anyway.
“A: I think the simple answer is: if lamas

confined themselves to teaching topics such as
ethical discipline, renunciation, and the
cultivation of loving kindness and compassion
few people would come.”
Wallace’s critique is that the Lamas teach
Dzogchen and tantra because that’s what
Westerner’s want to hear. They don’t want to be
bothered with ‘ethical discipline’, renunciation
and loving kindness.” That’s boring “beginner”
teachings for losers and pussies. That whole
Western attitude has been broadcast loud and
clear on this blog.
Secondly, or really firstly, many of these high
level tantric teachings are completely out of
context in a Western setting. The result is that
tantra itself gets watered down into a
programmatic pablum of marketable mush for
mass Western consumption. The result is a
Disneyfied “Magic Kingdom” that is purveyed
specifically for middle class western
consumption. It has all the rituals and deities, all
the “bells and whistles,” but none of the real
spiritual guts of tantric practice. It becomes just
another social club of eccentrics wearing funny
hats.

B. Allan Wallace: Westerners want the Fast

Track to Awakeing, Drive Through
Enlightenment;
Q: Isn’t there a problem here of appealing to the
ego? I may request the highest teachings because
I want to attain realization as quickly as
possible. But of what value are the higher
teachings if I haven’t absorbed the basics? Isn’t
that like throwing seed on stones?
A: In my experience, lamas who are willing to
give these very advanced teachings will strongly
emphasize the importance of the foundational
teachings and practices, such as those
concerning the cultivation of renunciation and
compassion. One of my teachers, Gyatrul
Rinpoche, has often given advanced teachings
on Mahamudra and Dzogchen, but he hammers
home the message time and time again: “Yes,
these are profound teachings. Yes, it can be very
helpful for you to do the practice. At the same
time, do not overlook the foundational
teachings, because these are the ones that, in the
foreseeable future, are much more likely to
really bring about evident transformation for the
better in your own minds and in your own
lives.” Gyatrul Rinpoche has taught for more
than two decades in this country. He still
emphasizes the foundational teachings, but at
times students complain that they have already
heard these teachings and don’t want to hear
them anymore. In many cases, even though these
students have not realized the foundational
teachings through practice, they’ve heard them
and more or less understood them intellectually.
But out of familiarity they have lost interest in
these teachings, no longer wishing to practice
them, and yearn instead for something new,
something profound, something that promises to
bring about the kind of spiritual transformation
they haven’t gained so far.
As Gyatrul Rinpoche has often commented, it’s
not that the lamas don’t want us to hear or
practice these higher teachings. They just don’t
want us to do them instead of the foundational
teachings, because then we’ll wind up following
the more advanced practices without benefiting
from them, while shunning the more basic
practices and therefore getting no practical
benefit at all. The advice I’ve heard and embrace
is that we need to keep our feet planted in the
ground of the foundational teachings and reach
to the sky with the more advanced teachings.
Q: If many Western students are getting the
higher teachings towards the beginning but then
have to go back to the foundational teachings,
isn’t this counterproductive?
A: It certainly can be!
Q: That doesn’t sound very efficient.
A: Overall, I don’t think there is much efficiency
in the way that teachings are taught or practiced
in the West, even though we, being a consumer
society, a business-oriented society, prioritize
efficiency. Also in the West various lamas of all
the different orders of Tibetan Buddhism are
passing through town for weekend events. And
this means you have the possibility of being
exposed to a hodgepodge of weekend teachings
and initiations and your exposure to Buddhism
becomes random. It’s like going to a buffet. You
pick up whatever is coming through, but there’s
no order to it, no continuity, no progressive
development, and so again: it’s very inefficient.
This can turn a lot of people into dilettantes, as
they acquire a “taste of the town” of Buddhism,
dabbling in one flavor after another, without
gaining proficiency in anything.
This lack of continuity is due, in part, to a lack
of patience. As a consumer society we want
snappy results. That’s part of what we consider
to be efficient. If we go to a teaching we want to
see results in a weekend, or at least in a week!
And some teachers are willing to cater to that
type of mentality. I’ve even seen advertisements
for Tibetan Buddhist events that sound like
Madison Avenue hype.
18. jamie s says:

Still enjoying the series! It will be interesting to

see how you pull it all together/conclude it.
I still think you have the potential to hit the wall
of people’s interpretation based on their stage
development. Someone who is not ready for
tantra is going to interpret tantra practices with a
sutra mind — they are going to looking for the
concrete “facts” of practice and are going to
follow those dogmatically. Hoping that won’t
happen, though! Looking forward to the next
posts.
I’m also hoping you will speak to the paradox of
“tantric ritual/practice” – why would a
practitioner who has the foundation of emptiness
(which also requires an embrace of full
experience) need a prescribed ritual? That’s the
part that has always hung me up when looking at
the Aro tradition. It’s full of really smart people
and dedicated meditators/practitioners… but
why do they all have to dress up like cowboys/
cowgirls and shoot guns or arrows? I’m not
asking the experiential why (it’s obviously fun),
I’m asking the formulaic why, i.e., why does the
costume party have one theme? What makes for
a quality tantric ritual? Why not just go to the
nightclub and fully experience that heaven and
hell, so to speak?
Obviously these short end-of-article comments
are too short for nuance, so I apologize in
advance for questioning so bluntly!
Thanks, jamie, these are insightful questions!

I still think you have the potential to hit the wall
of people’s interpretation based on their stage
development.
Definitely. Tantra is not for everyone.

they are going to looking for the concrete “facts”
of practice and are going to follow those
dogmatically.
Yes; that’s unfortunately common. I don’t intend

to talk about any “facts of practice,” so that’s not
a problem for me; but it’s a problem any teacher
of modern tantra faces.
My outline does include a post titled something
like “Tantra is not about advanced practices”
that would try to dispel that misunderstanding.
why would a practitioner who has the foundation
of emptiness (which also requires an embrace of
full experience) need a prescribed ritual?
For the same reason a competent cook often uses
recipes. A competent cook can improvise from
scratch, but you can’t figure out everything for
yourself every time. A recipe embodies the
understanding of some other expert who figured
out something that works reliably. Actually,
recipes almost always have a lineage; the one
you use is based on an earlier one, and so on, so
you are leveraging the experience of many
experts.
Also, when you do hit on something that works,
it’s good to write it down and do the same thing
again, because improvisation is error-prone.
Even for yourself, following your own recipe
helps.
Also because repetition itself works on the
human brain in some way that probably no one
understands. Just doing the same thing over and
over has a powerful effect.
why does the costume party have one theme?
That’s an excellent question… but as you

guessed, it’s one that would take a least a long
blog post to answer! There’s many different
aspects to the answer.
One would start: the overall function of the
event is very different from the function of a
costume party. The function of the particular
style of clothing serves that overall function. It’s
non-arbitrary. For example, there are Aro gTér
events in which everyone dresses in the manner
of the Regency Court of early 19th century
Britain. These “Natural Dignity” events are ones
whose function is to experience a society in
which everyone treats everyone else as
aristocrats (as I suggested in the last paragraph
of this page). One could do that wearing
anything, but Regency dress is a powerful
pragmatic support for the practice.
Why not just go to the nightclub and fully
experience that heaven and hell, so to speak?
One can, certainly. But a nightclub has a

different function, so it is not especially
supportive of the practice. It’s not antithetical to
tantra, at all; one should be able to practice
tantra there. But it’s not particularly easy, either.
20. jamie s says:

Thanks for the kind response. I was a bit worried

that it would be taken the wrong way. I’ve
admired the forthright expression of the Aro
tradition for a long time… I guess this series has
also reminded me how much I’m looking
forward to seeing what the next generation of
NC’s students create. He created a culture of
practice which seems very “his” in its
expression, but I don’t have a sense of how that
will continue into the future. (I suspect there are
students who will want to stay with the basic
recipe and there will be students that create their
own flavors while acknowledging the founding
inspiration…)
I guess that seque into Aro in the midst of a
discussion of ethics relates back to the “no
truths, only methods” idea. In my mind, we
should seek (and teach) ethics that provide the
merest of scaffolding to empower opening and
extending into the world, to help us meet the
rawness of the world as best we are capable. So
in that sense, I don’t care if it is bland middle-
class ethics or tantric… just as long a people are
(nobly) living slightly out of their comfort zone,
still growing up, still awakening, still
recognizing new resistances and new embraces
that were unseen/unknowable just a year ago…
I think most folks underestimate what they are
capable of — and underestimate how easy it is
to become stagnant — which is why I am really
enjoying your putting “nice” ethics in the
spotlight and putting tantra out there for a
critical look.
21. Rin'dzin Pamo says:

October 12, 2015 at 10:51 am
@Jamie
Re:
“That’s the part that has always hung me up
when looking at the Aro tradition. It’s full of
really smart people and dedicated meditators/
practitioners… but why do they all have to dress
up like cowboys/cowgirls and shoot guns or
arrows?”
Ngak’chang Rinpoche teaches on the

relationship between dress, art and Vajrayana
practice. I hope that he and Khandro Déchen
will write something for public consumption
about that…but they have many projects.
You probably only see pictures of those
apprentices (I’m one of them) that like to adopt
dress as practice. Not everyone has the time or
the inclination to re-invent themselves so
wholeheartedly, and nobody has to. But
regarding the way you display yourself in the
world as a practice is possible in small,
experimental bites, and individual apprentices
are sometimes encouraged to feel what it would
be like to dress differently. The facial topiary is
connected: different styles have associations
with particular characters of personality and
demeanour.
The Aro gTér lamas are influenced by Chögyam
Trungpa’s encouragement of hippie students to
break away from conventions of casual dress
and anti-establishment view. Tantra pulls the rug
from under your feet by challenging your
conformity to social and cultural convention.
Ritual of behaviour and dress can function in
this way: the structure provides leverage out
from sheep-like conformity you didn’t
previously see.
The style of dress they encourage is any that
expresses “tasteful flamboyance and unwitheld
appreciation. We have no hippie uniform to
shed, but rather, a form of drabness born of
‘comfort’ and ‘staid inconspicuousness.’ ”
The style of Western wear that Ngak’chang
Rinpoche likes is late 19th century. Like with
any art, once you get to know a field well, you
appreciate differences in style and detail. That
style is quite different to a cowboy/cowgirl look.
(I also like the latter – Rinpoche doesn’t.) The
practice is one of individual expression, within a
fixed period style. I don’t know what pictures
you’ve seen, but I guess if you look closely
you’ll see different individual styles of
appreciation.
“I’m not asking the experiential why (it’s
obviously fun), I’m asking the formulaic why,
i.e., why does the costume party have one
theme?”
It doesn’t, but you probably only see that theme,

because it’s obviously different in some way,
and that’s how people like to brand us. These are
pictures from apprentice gatherings and retreats
in Montana. Usually they’re very small. I’ll be
going to one next week which will have about
ten participants, max. On most apprentice
retreats across the world, apprentices wear what
they want, within the ‘theme’ of the yogic
colours – red, white and blue.
“What makes for a quality tantric ritual?”
This is an important question, there’s loads to

say…but probably this isn’t the place as we’d be
veering off-topic. I sometimes think about
resurrecting my Vajrayana Now blog, to write
about such things, but it’s not become top
priority yet.
“Why not just go to the nightclub and fully
experience that heaven and hell, so to speak?”
We do. Well, some of us, anyway.

“Obviously these short end-of-article comments
are too short for nuance, so I apologize in
advance for questioning so bluntly!”
I think these are really great questions, I’m glad

you asked them.
RiP
22. Rin'dzin Pamo says:

October 12, 2015 at 10:57 am
@Jamie
I was writing my comment while you posted
yours – sorry they crossed over.
I guess that seque into Aro in the midst of a
discussion of ethics relates back to the “no
truths, only methods” idea. In my mind, we
should seek (and teach) ethics that provide the
merest of scaffolding to empower opening and
extending into the world, to help us meet the
rawness of the world as best we are capable. So
in that sense, I don’t care if it is bland middle-
class ethics or tantric… just as long a people are
(nobly) living slightly out of their comfort zone,
still growing up, still awakening, still
recognizing new resistances and new embraces
that were unseen/unknowable just a year ago…
I like how you put this.
RiP

October 12, 2015 at 12:06 pm
He created a culture of practice which seems

very “his” in its expression
Yes; one aspect of tantra is that one takes the

personality-display of the lama as an aspect of
the path. Since different lamas have different
personality-displays, the mandala has a different
texture in each case.
I’m looking forward to seeing what the next
generation of NC’s students create.
This is happening now. The younger Aro gTér

Lamas all have distinctive personality-displays,
and many are developing their own distinctive
teachings—content as well as style. All are
consonant with the general Aro gTér ethos, but
diverse within that lineage.
a form of drabness born of ‘comfort’ and ‘staid
inconspicuousness.’
This is the middle-middle class display of

conspicuous blandness, which I deride in an
earlier post.
24. tridral says:

A wonderful piece of writing. It covers a lot of

ground fairly succinctly and is quite inspiring.
Thank you. I particularly enjoyed the working
class/aristocracy comparison. I think it’s well
put.
October 29, 2015 at 10:49 am
Thank you very much indeed for your

appreciation!
26. Joogipupu (@joogipupu) says:

@Jamie:
Speaking of the dress and Aro gTér, I am myself
an Aro practitioner and my lama (one of the
younger ones, not Ngak’chang Rinpoche),
suggested me to start to dress myself like a
biker. And so I did.
So not everybody looks like a cowboy either. :)
The suggestion I got was of course a personal
one. I am a large bear of a man, and I have an
appreciation of extreme metal music. I am also
related to Danish/Swedish Vikings – obvious if
you would see my face. Biker-like appearance
actually suits very naturally to me.

I have been thinking a little about modern

cultural developments and their convergence
with Vajrayana. As was being discussed above,
a lot of people are puzzled about why smart
people would perform rituals or dress up in
funny clothes. This, however, is just old-people
thinking- yup, all of those questions are
questions left over from modern and post-
modern thinking habits.
The newer era of thought, frequently called
Metamodernism, and sometimes by a sub-name
for an aspect of this post-postmodern life,
Performatism, has returned to ritualism.
Following the logic of: pre-modern thinking
took rituals and myths as god-ordained truth;
modernism tried to extract the essence or
abandon those things altogether to get to the real
meaning behind the rituals unclouded by
superstition; postmodernism decided that none
of them had any meaning in the end and there is
no meaning anyway so lets just get f’ed up and
play with surface forms. Metamodern times have
returned to play with meaning and to rediscover
depth, while knowing that they are empty of
meaning at the same time.
This is very much like the stages of Buddhist
vehicles as they develop from the most earthy up
to dzogchen (or zen too), and dzogchen (and
zen) in reality being usually practiced within the
context of a sadhana (a ritual)- zen is no
different in actuality, only with a different ritual
structure.
Ritual is used both as a way to transcend ones’
ego as well as a way to maintain awareness
while being embodied in form. So, if we know
that everything has no ultimate meaning then
how are we to act? We can do this by
interpreting our actions as performance, or as
ritual. In this way we reenchant the world while
maintaining an awareness of its ultimate
emptiness- instead of retreating into a lethargic,
paralyzed, meaning-devoid, nihilistic, surface
worshiping stupor.
Adopting deliberate clothing and behaviour is
part of this- seeing our world as constructed but
embracing it anyway while not losing the punch
line.
So as we reembrace ritual we understand it with
scientific eyes without letting science dismember
it; we reenchant the world and use ritual to help
us to realize and embody the otherwise-abstract
teachings; and we keep the vision that it is all
empty anyway without sliding into nihilism.
This is like doing a performance- hence the use
of the word Performatism elsewhere. How else
can you act and embrace life without making it a
self-oriented and grasping experience?
http://www.metamodernism.com/2015/10/21/
reconstruction-metamodern-transcendence-and-
the-return-of-myth/
Foster — Thanks, this is very much along the

lines that I have been thinking recently!
It resonates with Ritual and Its Consequences,
which I reviewed recently.
29. Alf says:

“A highlight of my time as a Wiccan Neopagan

was the culminating ritual of a week-long
retreat. The ceremony evolved by stages into
two hundred witches dancing naked around a
bonfire for hours after midnight. It was a
sublime, transformative experience.”
Now you’re talking.
30. georg schiller says:
Could we say that ethics is true as long as it

increases the feelings of peace, harmony,
concentration, gratitude and spaciousness? I
mean, there is no inherent basis for morality but
there are impacts of moral behaviour on our
human psyche.
If I show gratitude and help and donate to others
I feel good and warm.
If I talk to somebody who is going through a
“hard” time, I feel concentrated and in harmony
with myself.
If I spend the last hours with somebody dying, I
feel spaciousness.
On the other hand, if I insult somebody I feel
hard and contracted. If I don’t help somebody in
need I feel improsined with negative thoughts,
etc.
Would this explanation help to understand moral
behaviour? At least ancient India apparently
lived by this dharma. More details can be found
under the subject of Gunas -> Vedanta.
1.
2. antilogicalism says:
August 2, 2018 at 3:07 pm
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Buddhist Morality and Ethics

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Buddhist morality is Medieval

Traditional Buddhist morality developed in feudal

You’d find, for most current hot-button Western

“No ethical value” is relative

1. pp. 215-231 in Buddhism in the Modern World.

Author: David Chapman

Reblogged this on Advayavada Buddhism.

Buddhism theoretically (then and now) doesn’t

To what degree are the moral rules of traditional

4. David Chapman says:

nannus & Malaclypse — your thoughtful

Well, there was something like “just war” in

7. David Chapman says:

No, this is about rules for laypeople. I’m relying

Certainly in Tibetan Buddhism. This was

Several scholarly sources say that the point of

8. Sabio Lantz says:

Superb and brilliantly informative like the rest of

I would be happier if I could locate the Indian

if a woman is not under any specific protection,

You seem to imply that Buddhist tradition was

I am not sure. I’d be interested to read more

12. fripsidelover9110 says:

“I am not sure. I’d be interested to read more

13. David Chapman says:

Oh, good, thank you very much!

14. neunder says:

Could you recommend a book or article for the

Not specifically, no… while doing the research

The details are not necessarily representative,

16. Gabriel says:

“The ascetic Gotama is a refrainer from

17. David Chapman says:

18. David Chapman says:

Ah, yes, found some, in the chapter “The

19. chris says:

I don’t doubt this, but could someone post a

Yes, see Schopen’s piece. I’ve found a version

21. Pingback: Miscellanea November 2015 |

In Thanissaro Bhikku’s translation of the Digha

23. David Chapman says:

it was not considered acceptable by the Buddha

Yes; there are many other passages that say the

Yes, that’s an important point. As I explained

24. Alex says:

I have been reading this series with interest,

25. David Chapman says:

Alex, thanks for a thoughtful comment!

I said that the passages say that the Buddha said

But I didn’t say anything about what the Buddha

26. Alex says:

28. Justin says:

29. David Chapman says:

Hi Justin, thanks for the comments!

Several things to say about this…

I agree! As I said at the end of this post,

Thanks for this reference! If anyone is

Yes, I agree with this!

32. BupSahn Sunim says:

Interesting article but I can’t help feeling it is

Hi, see this comment. Also, we’ve discussed the

As far as I know, he did not forbid monks to do

34. Stephen L. Martin says:

Thank you for your post. As a Buddhist of 40