Beware of dead truisms: Look Twice Before “Killing the Buddha"

Another dive into the archive of drafts

Several years ago, my friend and once-upon-a-time editor, Casey Kemp, called my attention to Sam Harris' blog post "Killing the Buddha" (here), which is itself reprinted from an essay in Shambhala Sun.

When I first wrote about this post I called it “pablum.” Pablum is prechewed food, which we have replaced with commercially made "baby food," which is still pablum. It is like what birds feeding their young regurgitate into the waiting mouths of the chicks in the nest.

Harris' blog post is pablum. It requires no effort on the part of the reader to digest. It is composed of very well-worked-over claims that slide easily into the mind of the unreflective reader. The expression, "If you see the Buddha on the road, kill him," is attributed to the ninth-century Chinese Chan master Linji Yixuan. In the context of ninth century Chan Linji’s assertion seems to have been fresh, new, and perhaps we might suppose shocking, revelatory. Detached from its historical and cultural context, however, it is simply an empty slogan, an empty shapeless container that can be filled with whatever meaning someone wants.

And Sam Harris is ready to do just that, telling us that it means:

“As students of the Buddha, we should dispense with Buddhism.”

Hmm. Personally, I don't see that that follows, except under the interpretive domination of a popular religious rhetoric in two parts:

a) a claim that the tradition doesn't know what the founder meant, and

b) a claim to know what the founder meant.

That seems to be what Harris wants Linji’s assertion to mean.

I can’t say myself what Linji meant, but like other instances of its current usage, Harris’s use simply dresses in Buddhist robes the longstanding and stale truism that “Christ was not a Christian.”

This rhetorical form conceals the implicit claim that the person saying it can discern the “real, original, true, authentic” ideas of the founder from the “misinterpreted, culturally distorted doctrines” of their followers. As for example: “Religions were created by followers, and the teachings became distorted by the followers perceptions.” <link>

How do we know that this is true? Or, is it simply a popular prejudice—literally, pre- + judgement. It is, after all, simply one more story, a story about how teachings become distorted, and decay from their original. This image of religious history as a process of decay dates from the Protestant Reformation. It is not simply true of all religions at all times in the way that it is usually presented. It is instead an interpretive scheme applied to history—a way of selecting out certain facts and lining them up to tell a particular story.  

At one point, Harris says: “The wisdom of the Buddha is currently trapped within the religion of Buddhism.”

Implicitly, this kind of claim is based on the idea that institutionalized religion distorts the pure, original “wisdom” of the founder. At another point in the post for example, using emotively charged terms, Harris asserts that it is not the case that the lineage of the Dalai Lama is “uncontaminated by religious dogmatism.” And, note that the imagery of contamination reflectively implicates an image of its opposite, of purity, of being free of religious dogmatism.

Given this view of institutional religion, it seems rather ironic, then, that Sam Harris himself is now a brand, that is, an institution—you can listen to his podcast, buy his books, download his meditation app, which promises to teach you the “true purpose of meditation” … and, even read secondary sources about Sam Harris.

Sardonically, we might suggest that this latter sounds suspiciously—for those of us trained in the hermeneutics of suspicion—like the first step toward developing a Church of Sam which will distort his original, pure, authentic teachings. That will, in turn, then require a purifying reformation, new founders calling for a return to the original Sam, and the rejection of the Church of Sam.

Sorry if I’m waxing a bit Monty Python here, but there is a serious point regarding the nature of institutions—they are an integral part of human existence. Consider Jesus’ disciples, consider the sangha established by Śākyamuni.

In contrast, consider the image of the solitary Buddha—what is called a pratyekabuddha (Sanskrit, Pāli paccekabuddha, 緣覺乘). According to some versions, these are people who realize the impermanent nature of existence, and therefore attain awakening—but on their own, without any teacher or community. A slightly different version, one that I remember (dubious, yes) being taught, is that they are those who heard the Buddha teach, but then went off on their own, attained awakening, and entered nirvana without teaching others or forming a sangha.

Perhaps such figures are merely a kind of logical possibility, or perhaps they were a way of interpreting practitioners who had hung around the Buddha for a while, but then wandered off on their own. Whatever the origin of this image of a solitary buddha, they are respected, but not venerated. It is instead the Buddha who established the sangha, and the teachers who attained awakening within the lineage who are venerated.

People are always members of society, members of institutions, in some way or other. Rejecting “established religion” is not any guarantee that one is getting closer to some putative original, pure, authentic teaching. It is just another version of the story. You might like Sam Harris’ version just fine, and you have every right to do so, but remember that it is just another version, in this case, Sam Harris’ version.

And you might want to ask yourself, why’s he telling this story anyway?