'Modern Boeddhisme' & De Vipassanᾱ Meditatie Tradities
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'MODERN BOEDDHISME' & DE VIPASSANᾹ MEDITATIE TRADITIES Tillo Detige Universiteit Gent Scriptie voor het behalen van de graad 'Master in de Oosterse Talen & Culturen' Promotor: Prof. Dr. Frank Van Den Bossche mei 2009 1 Bhavatu sabba mangalaṃ 2 ABSTRACT This MA dissertation aims to open new perspectives to analyze the contemporary, Burmese originated vipassanā traditions. Therefore, we will first review the western study of Buddhism. Drawing on a number of mostly recent publications we will try to unmask hidden presumptions that have conditioned earlier perceptions of the Buddhist traditions. We will see how a protestant bias that locates true religion in its scriptures and a unilinear modernization hypothesis created a western image of Buddhism. We will also see how these early indological assumptions and constructions are still operational in more recent anthropological studies. We will then proceed with an overview of the scholarly discourse on 'modern Buddhism'. An expanding body of scholarly literature describes its features as: rationalism, decosmologization, demythologization, scientism, universalism, this-worldliness and scripturalism. Diverging modern- day Buddhist traditions are sometimes even constructed as a single lineage, 'a new, global sect of Buddhism'. (Lopez 2002) Because of certain perceived similarities the vipassanā traditions have become enmeshed in this discourse on 'modern Buddhism', and unravelling them from the discourse is one of the main objectives of this thesis. Before we continue, a closer look on the concept 'modernity' will reveal it's attractions and repulsions. A sharply outlined dichotomy between 'modern' and 'traditional' will be shown to block out the appreciation of any continuity. It is most deplorable that such heuristic concepts tend to be used and imagined of as though they were experiential categories, rather than the analytical tools they really are. Also, a Eurocentric, unilinear modernization hypothesis is still operational in western studies of the East that tends to uniformize different developments and shape them to the prototype of western modernization. Whatever happens to come about in the modern context will be interpreted as ‘modernization’ because an assumed modernization scheme still conditions our understandings. Turning to the Burmese colonial setting in which the vipassanā traditions originated, we will see how, in some respects, their origin can be described as one amongst several, often divergent reactions to modernity. An overview of the historical spread of the modern-day vipassanā movement, firstly within the Theravādin countries, then to other Asian countries and within the West, will then show some instances of how, in different contexts, the vipassanā traditions have taken stances radically divergent from other coterminous or preceding forms of 'modern Buddhism'. The conclusions reached point to the problematic nature of conflating the different 'modern Buddhist' traditions as a single lineage. Studying the contemporary vipassanā traditions and confronting them with the 'modern Buddhism' discourse, brings to the fore important points of divergence, and proof of nonalignment of these traditions with other modern and contemporary Buddhist developments. I will argue that demonstrating the similarity of different 'modern Buddhist' traditions based solely on their discourses perpetuates a textual bias, and a Eurocentric modernization paradigm. The similarities perceived are merely proof of the common contexts, difficulties and concerns these traditions are facing in the modern world. Answers are conditioned by the questions asked. The answers articulated by the different Buddhist traditions are seemingly similar because they have been formulated in response to the same, western dominated ideologies and histories. Identifying these divergent traditions because in their modern and contemporary discourses the same topics are being raised fails to recognize the western structure that has been implemented upon their discourses and teachings and falls into a narcissistic trap of recognizing precisely one's own features in the other. It fails to reach to the more distant beaches of this other, neglects diverging practices and other aspects of the different traditions' discourses, and thus fails to truly study what is dissimilar from oneself, instead projecting native peculiarities as the essence of the object under scrutiny. Only in this way has it 3 become possible to bluntly identify divergent traditions, as though century old traditions will become unified within the blink of an eye, preferably the modernist blink of a western eye. We are urged to recognize multiple modernities, moving away from a Eurocentric biased view of unilinear modernization as well as from a theory of globalization as univocal uniformization. And we are reminded of the nature of 'modern Buddhism' as a scholarly construct, designed for analytical purposes, and of the dangers of implementing it as a category of reality, as an entity existing 'out there', just waiting to be discovered and compared within its different manifestations. Moreover we are reminded of the inadequacy of the scholarly concept 'Buddhism' altogether, and find that not just sympathy but full-fledged scholarly justification can be argued for the application of the term 'dharma practice' to the vipassanā movement (as opposed to 'religious Buddhism'). (Batchelor) The contemporary vipassanā movement rejects the label 'religion' (Neubert), and refuses to be called 'Buddhist', thus not only dissociating themselves from the regional Buddhist traditions they originated in, but, even more so I would argue, from the orientalistic constructs 'Buddhism' and 'religion', that dominated the discourse they grew into. 4 INHOUDSOPGAVE ABSTRACT ..................................................................................................................................................... 2 INHOUDSOPGAVE ......................................................................................................................................... 5 VOORWOORD ............................................................................................................................................... 7 DEEL I: STUDIE VAN BOEDDHISME & MODERNITEIT .................................................................................. 10 1. Studie van het boeddhisme .................................................................................................................... 10 1.1 Indologie ............................................................................................................................................ 10 1.2 Case Study: de Pāli Text Society ...................................................................................................... 12 1.3 Antropologie ..................................................................................................................................... 14 2. 'Modern boeddhisme' ............................................................................................................................. 18 2.2 Continuation: 'Global Buddhism' ..................................................................................................... 19 2.3 Beginnings: kolonialisme ................................................................................................................. 22 2.4 Case study: 'protestants boeddhisme' ........................................................................................... 22 2.5 Beginnings: boeddhologie ............................................................................................................... 24 3. 'Moderniteit' ........................................................................................................................................... 27 3.1 'Moderniteit' & moderniteiten ........................................................................................................ 27 3.2 'Moderniteit' als westers construct................................................................................................ 27 3.3 Case study: koning Mongkut van Siam ........................................................................................... 29 DEEL II: BIRMA: KOLONIALISME & RESPONS .............................................................................................. 34 4. Zuid-Oost Azië & Modernisatie ............................................................................................................... 34 4.1 Modernisatie van Azië ..................................................................................................................... 34 4.2 De 'Galactic Polity' ........................................................................................................................... 35 4.3 Transformatie van de 'Galactic Polity' ........................................................................................... 36 5. Kolonialisme in Birma ............................................................................................................................. 38 5.1 Kolonisatie van Birma ...................................................................................................................... 38 5.2 Koloniaal religieus beleid: Indische voorgeschiedenis .................................................................. 38 5.3 Implementatie in Birma ..................................................................................................................