Martin LeFevre: Why I’m Not a Buddhist

It’s strange how one can sometimes have more in common with people that hold opposite views than one does with people who hold very similar views Such is the case with Buddhism, a ‘God-less’ religion with which I have much sympathy, but little simpatico.

Lest I play into the hands of believers who are willing to kill or be killed for their idea of God, let me be clear about the term ‘God-less.’ The belief in a paternalistic, patriarchal, all-knowing ‘Creator’—in other words, monotheism—is a projection from humankind’s adolescence that has become the biggest stumbling block to spiritual growth in the 21st century.

It is no accident that both sides in the putative ‘clash of civilizations’ hold the same core belief. Despite all the talk of shared Abrahamic roots, the belief in one God is the most divisive idea that the human mind has ever fabricated.

The God that the terrorists praised as they flew jetliners into the World Trade Towers is the same God that George Bush is dead certain supports him in his invasion and occupation of Iraq. It is the ultimate projection of the human mind, the distillation and expression of evil.

Monotheists venerate not the holy, but the projected power of the human mind. However just because there is no separate, Supreme Controller in the sky does not mean there is no such thing as God.

There is no ‘Creator’ in Buddhism, and therefore many refer to it as a philosophy, rather than a religion. In that I feel a deep affinity. This marks the point of both my congruence and divergence with Buddhism.

Because Buddhism has no adequate philosophy of evil (whereas Christianity’s philosophy of evil spreads it), Buddhism is powerless to confront the evils embodied in the Chinese government’s strangulation of the Tibetan people and culture, and the Burmese junta’s iron-fisted suppression of the democratic desires of the Burmese people. Whatever the degree of enlightenment of past and present Buddhist leaders in those two Buddhist countries, the 5th century BCE religious explosion ignited by Siddhartha Gautama is no longer applicable to our 21st century world.

This is even truer in countries where Buddhism has been transplanted, such as the United States. Despite its claim to the contrary, Buddhist spirituality and philosophy, which have organically sprung up in Eastern cultures, cannot be transplanted to Western ones.

In America, widespread acceptance of Buddhist ideas has not prevented the darkness and deadness of this culture from becoming pervasive. Despite Buddhism’s core mission to awaken people from “the sleep of ignorance,” more and more people are sleepwalking. In fact, many who have embraced Buddhism have added another layer of cunning avoidance to the hellish cultural conditions here.

For example, a reader recently expressed the view, common among American Buddhists at least, that “there have been many creations and destructions of the universe…the universe has gone through such perils [as we are seeing on earth] many times.” Such a perspective carries detachment to the point of reductio ad absurdum.

Perversely comforting notions like this allow adherents to remove themselves from the world, even as they see themselves rising above it. The practice of detachment thus works well for many in our hyper-individualized culture, grafting studied indifference onto unexamined roots of egoism (while “transcending the smaller self”). American Buddhists often express a cunningly concealed ignorance, saying things such as, “I see the light and darkness in a large overview.”

If the Buddha practiced that kind of detachment, he would not have given the world the “noble eightfold path.” But the eightfold path has splintered eight thousand ways, and since there is no method to illumination, none of it makes any real difference.

The creative explosion ignited by Siddhartha 2500 years ago was a regional phenomenon. It has all but been extinguished by the many traditions of Buddhism since, not to mention the mad rush toward materialism in the last few decades. Even so, it’s said there are still places where one can catch a whiff of the original perfume.

Be that as it may, insight into and liberation from human consciousness does not require tradition and ritual. Indeed, they impede it. As always, awareness grows without time into attention, and attention grows without knowing into timelessness.

- Martin LeFevre is a contemplative, and non-academic religious and political philosopher. He has been publishing in North America, Latin America, Africa, and Europe (and now New Zealand) for 20 years. Email: martinlefevre@sbcglobal.net. The author welcomes comments.

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