Varieties of Buddhist Practice

This chapter provides an overview of the wide variety of Buddhist practices. Though people who practice Buddhism would all self-identify as Buddhist, what Buddhism means to them and the role it plays in their lives is very different. Think about the social context. For some Buddhists, Buddhism is deeply intertwined with both family life and powerful social institutions. This social context affects how practice looks for each. The role of ritual is also different for each. Moreover, there are different background assumptions about the supernatural in play. Another difference is the place of meditation in the lives of each of these Buddhists. None of this is to say that any of these people are practicing “real” or “authentic” Buddhism. It is merely to highlight the ways in which Buddhist practice varies around the world.

Enlightenment

This chapter focuses on enlightenment. Many writers describe Buddhism as a path to happiness, but there are a few important ways in which enlightenment and happiness can be quite different. Happiness, for example, is often thought of as an entirely subjective state. The problem that Buddhists are trying to solve, however, is not merely a subjective state. The problem for Buddhists is not only about feeling bad but is a precarious and destructive way of being in the world, one that people often fail to recognize at all. In this sense, the Buddhist goal is more like being healthy than being happy. Enlightenment involves a radical reorientation of an individual’s outlook on the world. It is one that takes into account the ways in which an individual’s habits of seeing, feeling, thinking, and responding to things fool that individual into having a visceral sense that the world is one way when it is really very different.

Rebirth and Redeath

This chapter discusses the cycle of birth and death in Buddhism. It is important to distinguish rebirth from reincarnation. Reincarnation is the transfer of a soul from body to body. Rebirth, on the other hand, is a cycle of many births and deaths, without any soul linking them. It is commonly called rebirth but it could equally well be redeath since each lifetime involves both a birth and a death. In many traditional forms of Buddhism, this cycle of rebirth and redeath includes supernatural being and places. Many traditional Buddhists think of these places and beings as real. In fact, this is central to many traditional statements of the central problem Buddhism aims to solve; these different kinds of lives all make up what is called samsara. Beings are constantly being born and dying in these different realms, over and over and over. On this traditional understanding, Buddhism solves the problem by ending this cycle of birth and death. The solution, sometimes called nirvana, is about getting out of the cycle.

Buddhist Psychology

This chapter studies the importance of examining the nature of mental habits—the normal ways of perceiving, thinking, and feeling. The source of the problem is a mismatch between the usual way of relating to the world and how it really is, so it is important to closely examine mental habits and understand how exactly they obscure reality. Some Buddhists take this even further: It is not that one's mental projections do not match reality, they will say, but it is that there is no reality aside from an individual’s projections. For them, the problem is not a mismatch. The projections themselves are defective, obscuring not an external reality but the nature of the mind itself. The mental habits that distort reality are often called hindrances or poisons. These are things that the mind does that prevent an individual from seeing reality clearly.

Who Do You Think You Are?

This chapter explores self-knowledge, which is critical for solving the practical problems involved in getting through life. An awareness of your own quirks, character, and preferences is important for figuring out what works for you. However, self-knowledge is also tricky because it is especially elusive. People commonly learn about themselves only indirectly; often it is only by reading the reactions of others that people can see how harsh, kind, or annoying they are. It is also because when trying to know the self, the thing the individual is trying to see is the very thing that does the looking. Buddhism offers many evocative images to illustrate this special challenge: Just as a knife cannot cut itself, the mind cannot be directed toward itself. This makes knowing the self, especially in a deep way, an especially difficult task. Knowing the self thus requires special kinds of tools and methods. The chapter then considers the concept of Buddha Nature.

Reading, Writing, and Reciting

This chapter explores Buddhist literary practices. A huge number of Buddhist practices focus on the written word. Though early Buddhist teachings were passed on orally, they eventually took the form of written texts, which began to occupy a special place in Buddhist practice. Buddhist texts often function as tools to help us reorient the mental life. We interact with books in many ways; they are things we create, use, neglect, admire, destroy, and contemplate. Buddhists in particular spend huge amounts of time and energy reading, reciting, memorizing, studying, interpreting, and translating texts. These are widespread Buddhist practices and can function not only to preserve and spread Buddhist ideas and techniques but as distinctive practices of their own.

Kindness and Joy

This chapter focuses on Buddhist practices that aim to change one's feeling about good and bad events in one's life. These practices aim to change one's usual way of relating to others. In particular, they develop a pair of responses called metta and mudita. Metta is often translated as “loving kindness” and is a genuine concern for the happiness of others. Mudita is often translated as “sympathetic joy” and means feeling happy when good things happen to others. Though metta is similar to much of what can be called love or kindness, it is more specific than either. It is a sincere and selfless concern for others, for their happiness and well-being. Mudita is a similarly selfless response toward someone, but it is felt in response to a particular event.

Mindfulness of Death

This chapter studies Buddhist practices around death. Buddhist practice includes a wide range of reflections on death. Impermanence can be easy to accept as an abstract, intellectual idea, but death makes it personal and tangible. As such, these reflections can seem pretty grim. That is why it is important to remember their role in the larger contexts of Buddhist practice. They help an individual to get used to harsh truths about how the world is and change habitual responses to accommodate those truths. The idea is to reflect on the reality of death from a certain frame of mind—a diagnostic one intended to shed light on difficult aspects of reality and how one's intuitive responses deny or distort them. In a Buddhist context, the individual reflects on difficult things like death in order to better deal with it, to be able to forge a life in full view of such difficult facts.

Solitude and Meditation

This chapter describes the role of solitude and meditation in Buddhism. Solitude does play an important role in many Buddhist practices. The problem one is out to solve is very difficult and the intellectual, perceptual, and emotional habits that stand in the way are deep-seated. This means that attacking the problem requires focused time and energy. Establishing some distance from the diversions and pace of life allows the space to confront the problem in a sustained way. Many practices involve not only sustained focus, but also a greater degree of perceptual sensitivity to what is happening in the body and mind. It is not just being away from distractions that helps, but being away from the demands of the social world. Buddhists, particularly those who specialize in meditative practices, can take retreats that last for years. For those just starting out, such long periods of solitude can be dangerous. There is a reason that solitary confinement can be traumatic: Being suddenly alone for long stretches without preparation is psychologically risky.

Living Selflessly

This chapter details how the two truths and emptiness hold the key to living a more compassionate and engaged life. First, it is worth reflecting on the importance of conventions: Conventional truths are still truths and are relevantly different from conventionally false things. Realizing emptiness does not preclude genuine interaction with others on a conventional level. More important, internalizing the emptiness of all things brings with it an important ethical shift. It helps an individual to break out of the confines that the idea of a self imposes, allowing that individual to live a life that is less isolated and more compassionate. This ethical shift is central to a very important concept in many forms of Buddhism: the bodhisattva. This term is used to characterize a particular selfless ideal. The bodhisattva becomes someone who works toward helping others better see reality and live in accordance with it. They aim to solve the problem not just for themselves, but for all beings.