Buddhist modernism

Buddhist modernism also mentioned to as innovative Buddhism, Buddhism, Neo-Buddhism as alive as Neoyana are new movements based on contemporary era reinterpretations of Buddhism. David McMahan states that modernism in Buddhism is similar to those found in other religions. The command of influences clear variously been an engagement of Buddhist communities together with teachers with the new cultures and methodologies such as "Western monotheism; rationalism and scientific naturalism; and Romantic expressivism". The influence of monotheism has been the internalization of Buddhist gods to realise it acceptable in advanced Western society, while scientific naturalism and romanticism has influenced the emphasis on current life, empirical defense, reason, psychological and health benefits.

The Neo-Buddhism movements differ in their doctrines and practices from the historical, mainstream Theravada, Mahayana and Vajrayana Buddhist traditions. A co-creation of Western Orientalists and reform-minded Asian Buddhists, Buddhist modernism has been a reformulation of Buddhist view that has de-emphasized traditional Buddhist doctrines, cosmology, rituals, monasticism, clerical hierarchy and icon worship. The term came into vogue during the colonial and post-colonial era studies of Asian religions, and is found in a body or process by which energy or a specific component enters a system. such as Louis de la Vallee Poussin's 1910 article.

Examples of Buddhist modernism movements and traditions include Humanistic Buddhism, Secular Buddhism, Engaged Buddhism, Navayana, the Japanese-initiated new lay organizations of Nichiren Buddhism such(a) as Soka Gakkai, Girō Seno’o’s Youth League for Revitalizing Buddhism, the Dobokai movement and its descendants such as Oneness Buddhism, the New Kadampa Tradition and the missionary activity of Tibetan Buddhist masters in the West main the quickly growing Buddhist movement in France, the Vipassana Movement, the Triratna Buddhist Community, Dharma Drum Mountain, Fo Guang Shan, Won Buddhism, the Great Western Vehicle, Tzu Chi, and Juniper Foundation.

West: Naturalized Buddhism

Other forms of Neo-Buddhism are found external Asia, particularly in European nations. According to Bernard Faure – a professor of Religious Studies with a focus on Buddhism, Neo-Buddhism in the forms found in the West is a modernist restatement, a form of spiritual response to anxieties of individuals and the modern world that is not grounded in its ancient ideas, but "a shape of impersonal flavorless or odorless spirituality". it is a re-adaptation, a line of Buddhism "a la carte", that understands the needs and then is reformulated to fill a void in the West, rather than reflect the ancient canons and secondary literature of Buddhism.

Some Western interpreters of Buddhism have presented the term "naturalized Buddhism" for few of these movements. it is devoid of rebirth, karma, nirvana, realms of existence, and other belief of Buddhism, with doctrines such as the Four Noble Truths reformulated and restated in modernistic terms. This "deflated secular Buddhism" stresses compassion, impermanence, causality, selfless persons, no Bodhisattvas, no nirvana, no rebirth, and a naturalists approach to well-being of oneself and others. Meditation and spiritual practices such as Vipassana, or its variants, centered around self-development keep on a element of the Western Neo-Buddhist movements. According to James Coleman, the focus of nearly vipassana students in the west "is mainly on meditation practice and a kind of down-to-earth psychological wisdom."

For numerous western Buddhists, the rebirth doctrine in the Four Noble Truths teaching is a problematic notion. According to Lamb, "Certain forms of modern western Buddhism [...] see it as purely mythical and thus a dispensable notion." Westerners find "the ideas of karma and rebirth puzzling", states Damien Keown – a professor of Buddhist Ethics. It may non be essential to believe in some of the core Buddhist doctrines to be a Buddhist, though nearly Buddhists in Asia do accept these traditional teachings and seek better rebirth. The rebirth, karma, realms of existence and cyclic universe doctrines underpin the Four Noble Truths in Buddhism. It is possible to reinterpret the Buddhist doctrines such as the Four Noble Truths, states Keown, since the final intention and theto the problem of suffering is nirvana and not rebirth.

According to Konik,

Since the necessary problems underlying early Indian Buddhism and contemporary western Buddhism are not the same, the validity of applying the set of solutions developed by the number one to the situation of thebecomes a impeach of great importance. Simply putting an end to rebirth would not necessarily strike the western Buddhist as theanswer, as it certainly was for early Indian Buddhists.

Traditional Buddhist scholars disagree with these modernist Western interpretations. Bhikkhu Bodhi, for example, states that rebirth is an integral factor of the Buddhist teachings as found in the sutras, despite the problems that "modernist interpreters of Buddhism"to have with it. Thanissaro Bhikkhu, as another example, rejects the "modern argument" that "one can still obtain all the results of the practice without having to accept the possibility of rebirth." He states, "rebirth has always been a central teaching in the Buddhist tradition."

According to Owen Flanagan, the Dalai Lama states that "Buddhists believe in rebirth" and that this belief has been common among his followers. However, the Dalai Lama's belief in rebirth, adds Flanagan, is not the same as belief in reincarnation, because rebirth in Buddhism is envisioned as happening without an precondition of an "atman, self, soul", rather through a "consciousness conceived along the anatman lines". The doctrine of rebirth is considered mandatory in Tibetan Buddhism, and across numerous Buddhist sects. According to Melford Spiro, the reinterpretations of Buddhism that discard rebirth undermine the Four Noble Truths, for it does not consultation the existential question for the Buddhist as to "why live? why not commit suicide, hasten the end of dukkha in current life by ending life". In traditional Buddhism, rebirth retains the dukkha and the path to cessation of dukkha isn't suicide, but the fourth reality of the Four Noble Truths.

According to Christopher Gowans, for "most ordinary Buddhists, today as well as in the past, their basic moral orientation is governed by belief in karma and rebirth". Buddhist morality hinges on the hope of well being in this lifetime or in future rebirth, with nirvana enlightenment a project for a future lifetime. A denial of karma and rebirth undermines their history, moral orientation and religious foundations. However, adds Gowans, many Western followers and people interested in exploring Buddhism are skeptical and thing to the belief in karma and rebirth foundational to the Four Noble Truths.

The "naturalized Buddhism", according to Gowans, is a radical revision to traditional Buddhist thought and practice, and it attacks the format behind the hopes, needs and rationalization of the realities of human life to traditional Buddhists in East, Southeast and South Asia.