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Theravāda “Missionary Activity”: Exploring the Secular Features Of Western Kentucky University TopSCHOLAR® Masters Theses & Specialist Projects Graduate School Spring 2019 Theravāda “Missionary Activity”: Exploring the Secular Features of Socio-Politics and Ethics Christopher Scott rB ugh Western Kentucky University, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.wku.edu/theses Part of the Buddhist Studies Commons, Ethics in Religion Commons, and the Other Languages, Societies, and Cultures Commons Recommended Citation Brugh, Christopher Scott, "Theravāda “Missionary Activity”: Exploring the Secular Features of Socio-Politics and Ethics" (2019). Masters Theses & Specialist Projects. Paper 3119. https://digitalcommons.wku.edu/theses/3119 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by TopSCHOLAR®. It has been accepted for inclusion in Masters Theses & Specialist Projects by an authorized administrator of TopSCHOLAR®. For more information, please contact [email protected]. THERAVĀDA “MISSIONARY ACTIVITY”: EXPLORING THE SECULAR FEATURES OF SOCIO-POLITICS AND ETHICS A Thesis Presented to The Faculty of the Department of Philosophy and Religion Western Kentucky University Bowling Green, Kentucky In Partial Fulfillment Of the Requirements for the Degree Master of Arts By C. Scott Brugh May 2019 To my ācarinī, Lindsay, and ācarinīpācariya, Bojjhā ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to first thank my mentor and thesis advisor Dr. Jeffrey Samuels. Attempting to summarize his professional and personal attributes would unequivocally leave absent a healthier list of esteemed qualities; however, inspiring does begin the list. Instrumental to writing this thesis were the historical and linguistic understandings I gained through Dr. Samuels’s class readings, individualized content-focused discussions, and translation-work on Pāli texts. Moreover, his ethnographic expertise allowed me to procure new information in how Burmese Theravāda monastics conduct their missionary activity. Without his insightful thoughts, suggestions, and directives, as well as uplifting words upon my expressing the vicissitudes that accompany ethnographic research, this exploration would have certainly been less productive or revealing. Thus, I am not only honored and thankful to have such a mentor, but also humbly indebted for the education bestowed and friendship formed. I would like to thank both Dr. Eric Bain-Selbo and Dr. Patrick Pranke as well. Early on in my coursework, Dr. Bain-Selbo intellectually stimulated my theoretical interest. In particular, discussions on Talal Asad’s work—an anthropology on “the secular” in relation to Christianity and Islam—motivated me to better understand, apply, and consider how such an approach may redefine early Theravāda and Theravāda as a missionary religion. Additionally, as my thesis developed, he helped steer this work with key advice: “To keep in mind the larger purpose.” While grappling with the material, this advice proved to be paramount in sifting out extraneous information. Dr. Pranke’s comments and questions in each chapter also helped compose and strengthen ideas presented throughout this thesis. Specifically, his expertise in Burmese Theravāda iv Buddhism provided me with both a clearer understanding on the Abhidhamma’s historio- cultural significance and the tools to more precisely articulate specific ethnographic information presented in the last chapter. I would also like to express my gratitude to Dr. Paul Fischer for the course on religious literature. His course both initiated my analysis on the word “desetha,” in the Pāli form, and is the reason for the content presented in the second chapter. Lastly, I thank Paula Williams and the Department of Philosophy and Religion at Western Kentucky University for sharing not only their time and knowledge with me, but also for their support through meaningful conversations and welcomed laughter. Sincerely, C. Scott Brugh v TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction ......................................................................................................................... 1 A Conceptual Framework of Buddhist Missionary Activity ........................................... 8 Methodology and Chapter Outline ................................................................................ 16 Chapter 1—Missionizing “Desetha”: A Western Misinterpretation ................................. 22 The Preserve of Prākritic Words’ Meanings: The Pāli Language-Form ....................... 23 Reevaluating Early Theravāda Missionizing through Western Interpretations ............ 26 “Desetha”: From Pāli to Sanskritic and Prākritic Word-Forms .................................... 37 A Retranslation of Mara’s Snare .................................................................................... 41 Chapter 2—The Secular Underpinnings of “Missionary Activity” in Early Theravāda ... 46 The Development of Pre-Modern Missionary Activity ................................................. 49 Religious Features in a Sociopolitical Movement ......................................................... 60 Missionizing, Enlightenment, and Freedom in the Public Space of Debates ................ 74 Chapter 3—The U.S. Vipassanā Meditation Movement: A Contextual Theravāda Lineage ........................................................................................................................................... 90 The U.S. Vipassanā Meditation Movement’s Origination: Monastic Leadership ......... 95 “Spirituality” and “Freedom” in the Public Space of Debates: Gaining Supporters ..... 99 Contextualizing Ritual, Monasticism, and Doctrine .................................................... 109 Chapter 4—The Abhidhamma: An Applied Ethics Shaping the Daily Lives of Burmese Theravāda Buddhist Monastics ....................................................................................... 121 A Relationship Between the Abhidhamma, Burmese Monks, and “Missionizing” .... 123 Transmitting the Abhidhamma ................................................................................... 137 The Missionary Spectrum ........................................................................................... 141 Conclusion ....................................................................................................................... 147 Bibliography .................................................................................................................... 151 vi THERAVĀDA “MISSIONARY ACTIVITY”: EXPLORING THE SECULAR FEATURES OF SOCIO-POLITICS AND ETHICS Christopher Scott Brugh May 2019 159 Pages Directed by: Jeffrey Samuels, Eric Bain-Selbo, and Patrick Pranke Department of Philosophy and Religion Western Kentucky University The purpose of this thesis is to comprehensively explore Theravāda missionary activity. The philological, textual, theoretical, and ethnographic methods used to investigate the historical, sociopolitical, religious, and ethical aspects of early Theravāda, the U.S. Vipassanā (Insight) meditation movement, and modern Burmese Theravāda revealed nuanced meanings in the descriptions of these adherents’ endeavors with respect to proselytizing, converting, and the concept of missionary religions. By exploring the secular features that contributed to their religious appearances, a more developed contextualization of Theravāda “activity” reshapes understandings of the larger concept of missionary religions. I argue that what has been maintained in the establishment of early Theravāda, and continuance of Theravāda thereafter, is the preservation of a secular activity with respect to resolving diverse sociopolitical and ethical tensions through religious articulations and practices of tolerance and egalitarianism. In brief, the first chapter is a philological study on the Pāli word “desetha” or “preach.” The word desetha, and thus its meaning, is traced to its Prākritic form—a contemporaneous language more likely spoken by Gotama Buddha—to posit a more accurate translation for this word. Next, a theoretical examination into early Theravāda’s sociopolitical, ethical, and religious environment demonstrates the larger secular, rather than religious, features that contributed to this ancient movement’s emergence. A contextual analysis comparing the emergence and establishment of the “secular” U.S. vii Vipassanā (Insight) meditation movement to that of early Theravāda follows, in order to explore how the former aligns with Theravāda missionizing. Lastly, an ethnographic study on Burmese Buddhist monastics is presented. In relation to missionary activity, the Abhidhamma, a Buddhist doctrinal system, not only provides Burmese Buddhist monastics with a system of applied ethics that shapes how they interact with Buddhists and non-Buddhists in America, but also helps to explain the larger concern of viewing such activity as strictly “religious.” viii Introduction While all global religions have taken part in “missionary activity,” the misconception that religious and secular worlds or “categories” exist or operate apart from one another restricts our understanding of this concept.1 The lack of consideration of how secular features both intersect with and influence perceptions of missionary activity has resulted in a non-comprehensive and unrealistic view with respect to Theravāda Buddhism. When strictly defined as religious activity, this concept seems maladapted or imposed into the expansion of early Theravāda and post-canonical Theravāda forms, such as the U.S. Vipassanā meditation movement and Burmese Theravāda
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