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The Diamond Way in the Age of Globalization: a Study of Transnational Buddhist Community Formation

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The Diamond Way in the Age of Globalization: a Study of Transnational Buddhist Community Formation XXII/2014/2/Téma The Diamond Way in the Age of Globalization: A Study of Transnational Buddhist Community Formation ZUZANA BÁRTOVÁ It is 11 p.m. Several thousand people are sitting relaxed on the floor of a big tent at ‘the Europe Center’ near Immenstadt and listening to Ole Nydahl. This Danish citizen (with his wife Hannah Nydahl) is the founder and the principal teacher of the Diamond Way, which could be considered1 as a religious organization2 of lay western3 converts4 whose teachings and practices are based on the Karma Kagyu school of Tibetan Buddhism. It is present today over a large part of the world. I argue that its ambition is to be a transnational community. It has accelerated this tendency since the foundation of the Europe Center in Germany. In this article I take a close look precisely at this community and the role of the shared location mate- rialized by the Europe Center. With respect to the transnational commu- nity making5 of the Diamond Way, I associate, by means of a dynamic approach, the choice to adopt particular Buddhist teachings and values that 1 The Diamond Way has been the subject of an extremely limited number of scholarly studies so far (see Burkhard Scherer, “Interpreting the Diamond Way: Contemporary Convert Buddhism in Transition”, Journal of Global Buddhism 10, 2009, 17- 48: 28). 2 In accord with Lionel Obadia, we understand the Diamond Way as a particular organi- zation whose founder is Ole Nydahl (and Hannah Nydahl), see Lionel Obadia, “Diamond Way Buddhism”, in: J. Gordon Melton – Martin Baumann (eds.), Religions of the World: A Comprehensive Encyclopaedia of Beliefs and Practices, Santa Barbara – Denver – Oxford: ABC-Clio 2002, 398-399. The term ‘Diamond Way’ is an English translation of vajrayāna, one of expressions designing a tantric form of Buddhism (Paul Williams – Anthony Tribe, Buddhist Thought: A Complete Introduction to the Indian Tradition, London – New York: Routledge 2000, 196). 3 We use the term ‘western’ to speak about non-Asian converts for pragmatic reasons (cf. Martin Baumann – Charles S. Prebish, “Introduction”, in: iid. [eds.], Westward Dharma: Buddhism Beyond Asia, Berkeley – Los Angeles – London: University of California Press 2002, 1-16: 5). 4 The term is generally used for non-Asian Buddhists in opposition to the Buddhism of migrants. It stays pertinent although ambiguous (Paul David Numbrich, “Two Buddhisms Further Considered”, in: David Keown [ed.], Buddhist Studies from India to America: Essays in Honor of Charles Prebish, London – New York: Routledge 2006, 182-204). We can also use the term ‘followers’ or ‘practitioners’. 5 I prefer to talk about a transnational community to underline the extent of its expansion and multiple sorts of connections inside the organization even if the Diamond Way it- self uses the phrase ‘international community’ to describe its multinational character. 132 Zuzana Bártová may mark the entrance to a religious community with the importance of a physical location and the possibilities of face to face encounters. It is argued that the aim of the Diamond Way organization is not simply geographical growth but the creation of a particular kind of transnational community that cannot exist only on the basis of shared teachings, prac- tices and teachers without direct social interactions on a transnational level. The aim is to show that the geographical aspect remains important for contemporary communities but cannot be seen as it used to be as a permanent place of living of all members of the community in question. It is rather a shared place of living during exceptional, emotionally charged occasions, symbolizing a common goal and helping to strengthen a com- mon feeling of belonging. Nevertheless, I also point out several limits to the role of the Europe Center in the process of transnational community formation, mainly because of the primary importance of national and local communities as illustrated on the Czech Diamond Way. The results presented in this article are drawn from Ph.D. research in progress about Buddhism in Europe. The project seeks to investigate sev- eral Buddhist organizations and their practitioners in France and the Czech Republic. In this article I do not attempt to present overall conclusions of this project. Instead I present a particular topic I find interesting. The re- search work took place between September 2010 and November 2013 and employed a combination of participative observations and qualitative in- terviews. The first method involved taking part in teachings, meditations, rituals, socialising, and work-related activities and notes were mostly tak- en afterwards. As for interviews, I conducted 70 semi-directive interviews with leaders and practitioners, most of them recorded on a voice recorder. The sampling procedure adopted consisted of judgement sampling. In the case of the Czech Diamond Way,6 overt participation took place in the Prague center during several stays over the research period. My presence was negotiated with the movement resulting in several minor restrictions such as limited access to organization meetings and small in- tensive practice weekends. In order to participate in the Summer Course in 2012, a simple form of Internet registration was necessary, even though I had informed Czech leaders and the organizational leader Caty Hartung beforehand about my presence. The interview with Caty Hartung took place in the Europe Center outside the Summer Course and enabled me to see the everyday life of residents and guests; the image was complemented by an interview with one Czech Europe Center resident. As for particular interviews with practitioners, most of them were carried out in Prague, 6 The Diamond Way was not studied in France due to its really limited number of prac- titioners. 133 The Diamond Way in the Age of Globalization… eighteen in total. In addition, a great number of informal discussions took place throughout the research. Primarily, we should focus our attention on the expansion of Diamond Way ideas and practices worldwide as a result of the Nydahls’ missionary activity and its organizational transnational management. This shared real- ity seems to be insufficient for the building of a transnational community of all followers, the reason for which the Diamond Way founded the Europe Center and launched the Summer Course. The practitioners from different parts of the world gather in one place during a massive gathering, multiplying occasions for encounters. However, personal contacts among different nationalities are not so numerous and remain rather ephemeral in comparison to the already existing personal interactions among practition- ers from local centers. Therefore, I see that the Europe Center holds an ambivalent position for practitioners from Czech centers. These findings lead to the conclusion that the Europe Center is a place for strengthening the transnational community rather than creating it. Religion and community in the era of globalization As already stated, my main interest is centred on the transnational com- munity building of the Diamond Way in the era of globalization. Globalization, as ‘the growing multidirectional flows’ of persons, ideas, objects etc.,7 has resulted in the transformation of community, introducing especially its transnational expressions.8 Religious communities are no exception, as indicated by Linda Woodhead’s remarks about the impor- tance of transnational religious communities.9 However, Woodhead does not develop the question in more detail. How, therefore, should we under- stand this type of community? The sociology of community bears the heritage of the first sociologists, mostly of Ferdinand Tönnies, famous for his classical distinction between community and society.10 However, it should not be presented as a strict opposition between an authentic social form of community characterized by local closeness, intimacy and long-standing relationships – in short, common life – and society as a set of individuals connected only by the shared place where they live, because Tönnies’ analysis of community 7 George Ritzer, Globalization: A Basic Text, Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell 2010, 2. 8 Gerard Delanty, Community, (Key Ideas), London – New York: Routledge 22010, 119. 9 Linda Woodhead, “Introduction”, in: Linda Woodhead – Rebecca Catto (eds.), Religion and Change in Modern Britain, London: Routledge 2012, 1-33: 26. 10 Ferdinand Tönnies, Community and Civil Society, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2001 (first ed. in German: 1887). 134 Zuzana Bártová concerns pre-modern societies.11 Furthermore, his conceptual distinction and subsequent analysis seems not to be particularly useful in the discus- sion of today’s communities. Another well-known analysis is presented by Max Weber. His ideas of a community depending on a subjective feeling of belonging, whose source lies in emotions and/or traditions, presupposes a common locality and social interactions.12 In contrast to these classical authors, more and more researchers high- light the choice of community made by individuals.13 Signe Howell, dis- cussing adoptive parents in Norway, points out that members of a com- munity subscribe to a shared view of reality and shared goals, but personal relationships do not disappear. They come into question once the common specialness of individuals has been instituted.14 Sociologists thus confirm the prevalence of interaction for collective identity.15 Thanks to personal contact, a feeling of belonging is possible because the abstract idea of community symbolizes concrete persons with whom experiences, activities and stories are shared. Personal contact is possible in a shared place which, therefore, keeps its importance also in the digital age.16 A shared place does not constitute a basic feature of the community but is still important.17 These analyses can also be applied to religious communi- ties, influenced by modern transformations. It may be said that transna- tional religious communities in the globalization era do not have to share a common place permanently in order to exist; however, a common reality together with social interactions suppose the existence of a place to meet if such communities are to exist.
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