Monks in Caves or Saints in Society?

A friend of mine recently converted to Buddhism or at least embraced Zen teachings and asked for my opinion on some of the issues.  I am nowhere near being an expert but I have had a decent amount of exposure living among Cambodians for two years, getting an Asian Studies minor, and eating a lot of Chinese food.  So I speak primarily from my personal experiences.  My response over multiple exchanges:

I have a lot of respect for Buddhism. There is something quite beautiful about the mediation, concentration, and unity with the natural world found in Zen Buddhism. The traditional teachings of Buddhism are quite simple and beautiful, i.e. the 8 fold path, and when practiced are conducive to a harmonious society.

The Cambodians I worked with were Theravada Buddhists and for the lay people it was more a matter of culture than religion. A lay practitioner likely didn’t know the theology, history, or teachings of the Buddha. For most it meant an altar in the home dedicated to one’s deceased parents, Buddhist ceremonies at times of weddings or funerals and certain phrases with Buddhist overtones incorporated into language. So I didn’t always see the best of Buddhism working with poor refugees in the States, it was very complicated with lost faith because of the holocaust, generational gaps, the allure of prosperity for the first time in their life, etc. We did have some positive experiences, we actually taught English at a Buddhist temple/community center and ended up becoming friends with one of the monks. When I was on my mission the church finished building a new temple and had an open house for the public. We took our monk friend to give him a tour. The best part of it though was just traveling throughout the city, the sight of two mormon missionaries in their white shirts and ties and a little cambodian buddhist monk dressed in bright orange robes strolling along as friends.  Onlookers appeared utterly confused.

Upon further inquiry:

Some of my thoughts… In a lot of ways I don’t see Buddhism as a religion strictly speaking because it doesn’t speak about the ultimate questions of life (life after death, issues of creation/cosmos, etc). Sakyamuni stayed away from those questions on purpose, I think to pull his audience back to the present of how to control their thoughts and behaviors to develop goodness and a good society. I think of it more as philosophy; a way-of-living philosophy. I think Gautama was particularly upset by the extremes, the extreme of ease and comfort he grew up in, the extreme of suffering and death, and the extreme of radical ascetics; all of which are extremely applicable in our modern time.

As I see modern Buddhism practiced (keeping in mind that there are endless shades and expressions of Buddhism) I think one thing that I don’t like, and I don’t think was the original intention of Sakyamuni, is the tendency to withdraw from society into the mind. Similar to Grant’s thoughts about the monks who lived in the caves in Ukraine (do you remember his remarks?)-

[we had traveled to the Ukraine previously touring multiple underground monastery caves, a common friend had delivered a very moving discourse at one point in which, although with utmost respect, expressed the error of these medieval monks to think that the highest enlightenment in Christian teachings called for them to remove themselves from the world and live their entire lives in these caves in meditation]

-Basically that the principles taught by Christ begin with the control of self but rise to the high interaction of human relations, that ‘enlightenment’ or ‘christian living’ is to be experienced in the human interaction of charity and love.  There are a lot of similar teachings between the two, particularly the basic teachings of the Sermon on the Mount and the 8-fold path.  Buddha stopped way short of claiming to be the Son of God or coming back to life after death, but those are thoughts for another discussion. So I don’t think the intention, even in the present-minded thinking of Zen, was to turn completely inward in thought.

I also found Buddhism as practiced by the people I was interacting with frustrating because it was so intertwined with culture and national identity. They did not act out of conscious choice, they were not Buddhist because they ‘believed’ it, they were Buddhist because they were Cambodian and it closed off the mind.  And it wasn’t just that I wanted them to listen to the message I was sharing but just the frustration that they weren’t thinking deeply about life, deciding for themselves what they thought/believed, like you say you like the freedom it gives you to create your own reality, unfortunately I often saw it have the opposite effect when it was strictly a cultural ‘religion’. So, the ‘the unexamined life if not worth living’ type frustration.

As far as living in the moment, savoring every aspect of life, that has been a particular challenge for me as well, and it took a kind of wake up call to get me to look at life with different eyes. I have become much more relaxed since then, hopefully been more pleasant to be around as well. Two places I see it most strongly is the value I give to human relationships and my feelings about the natural world. I think modern living in many ways pulls us away from enjoying those aspects so that it must be a conscious repeated decision based on what we want to value.

Well, this is getting quite long, of course you’ve hit topics I could go on and on about.