Secular Buddhism

(derived from Secular Buddhist Network (SBN)

Basic elements of secular Buddhism

While secular Buddhists share a skeptical view of the supernatural deities and processes of traditional Buddhism (e.g. rebirth), there is a wide range of views among secular Buddhists concerning various beliefs, perspectives and practices.

Even though there is no secular Buddhist orthodoxy, secular Buddhists share a framework for a more mindful and compassionate life. This framework is, in essence, a pragmatic program for human flourishing that does not subscribe to metaphysical beliefs or religious truth-claims.

Key ideas:

1. Secular Buddhism is a ‘this-worldly’ practical and ethical philosophy, focused on the value of the dharma for and in this life.

2. Secular Buddhists are skeptical of or reject supernatural entities or processes (e.g,. rebirth) in traditional versions of Buddhism.

3. The Buddha is seen as an historical person, not a God-like figure.

4. Secular Buddhists retain the essential insights of Buddhism while letting go of cultural ‘accretions.’

5. A secular approach to the dharma emphasizes the pragmatic and ethical dimensions of Buddhism rather than a set of metaphysical beliefs.

6. Secular Buddhists believe that we need not only to transform ourselves but to create a society which promotes the flourishing of all.

A "this-worldly" practical and ethical philosophy

In secular Buddhism, there is an emphasis on how the dharma is valuable to us for and in this life, helping to promote human flourishing. It’s a “this-worldly” philosophy. On the other hand, some versions of traditional Buddhism focus instead on attaining nirvana and escaping or freeing oneself from the suffering in samsara, our day to day life.

Skepticism or rejection of supernatural entities or processes

Virtually all secular Buddhists share a skepticism about or rejection of some key concepts in traditional forms of Buddhism, such as rebirth in another life, gods, devas and other supernatural entities, etc.

The Buddha as a historical person

Secular Buddhists believe that Gotama, later called the Buddha, was a human being who realized and taught a way of living in the world which promotes human flourishing. While he was a great teacher and meditator, and lived an exemplary ethical life, he did not have supernatural powers and didn’t lay claim to any.

Retain the essential insights, jettison the cultural accretions not relevant to our contemporary world

Secular Buddhists believe that the original insights of Gotama are crucial for promoting human flourishing and a just society. However, those insights were transformed into an institutionalized, hierarchical and other-worldly religion as Gotama’s teachings were assimilated into existing Indian and other Asian perspectives and beliefs. While in no way disrespecting the Asian cultures in which traditional forms of Buddhism developed, Secular Buddhists focus on those aspects of the Buddha’s teachings which are relevant to the challenges and problems that we face today in our lives.

A pragmatic, ethical path – not a set of truths

Secular Buddhists assert that Gotama did not identify a set of universal or metaphysical truths about the world, rather that he provided us with practices and insights that enable us to live in an uncertain world skillfully, with compassion towards oneself and others.

Promoting a culture of mindfulness and compassion

Secular Buddhists value meditation practice and understand the need for transformation on an “internal” level. However, just as or perhaps more importantly, secular Buddhists emphasize the importance of building democratic communities (or sanghas) to help promote human flourishing. Secular Buddhists recognize that individual transformation does not occur in a vacuum, but is intrinsically connected, both as a cause and effect, with the creation of a more just society which gives all people the opportunity to flourish.

A core concept of secular Buddhism: the four tasks

Gotama, the man we call the Buddha, lived in the northeast of what is now India roughly between 480BCE and 400BCE. In his first teaching, he presented his listeners with ‘a middle way’ that avoided the religious dead ends of his time – mortification and indulgence. This path is based on his understanding of why human beings experience suffering and how we can stop suffering: what traditional Buddhists call the Four Noble Truths.

An essential idea of secular Buddhism is that the core teachings and insights of the historical Buddha, Gotama, are not ‘truths’ to be believed but a ‘fourfold’ task to help us live our lives in a mindful and compassionate way.

The Four Noble Truths in traditional Buddhism are:

1) Life inevitably involves suffering;

2) Suffering is caused by craving;

3) We can be free of suffering if we stop craving; and

4) There is a way of thinking, acting, and meditating that leads to complete liberation from suffering (Eightfold Path).

The four tasks (ELSA) are:

1. Embrace life

2. Let reactivity be

3. See reactivity stop

4. Actualize a path

Gotama’s teachings about dukkha are not truths to be believed, but injunctions to transform our lives and promote human flourishing in this world.

A summary description of each task (After Buddhism: A Workbook, Winton Higgins):

Task #1: Embrace Life

Dukkha is conventionally translated as ‘suffering’. However, this is incapable of expressing the Buddha’s explicit list of what dukkha stands for: birth, sickness, aging, death, separation from what we love, being stuck with what we detest, not getting what we want, and our overall psycho-physical vulnerability. No human being can evade any of these experiences.

So this first facet of the fourfold task is about embracing our human condition. This life also includes pleasure and the potential for awakening. But the way to an enhanced experience of these boons lies in coming to grips with ‘the full catastrophe’, as Zorba the Greek put it... (ABW, p.29)

Task #2: Let Reactivity Be

It’s entirely natural for us humans to react to our constantly shifting environment. We’re hardwired to do that. This is what ‘arising’ refers to: ‘the myriad reactions that life provokes in us’. These reactions are evolutionary factors: back in our old cave-person days they underwrote our survival. But they get out of hand: reactivity is (in the Buddha’s words) ‘repetitive, wallows in attachment and greed, obsessively indulges in this and that: craving for stimulation, craving for existence and craving for non-existence’. It gets worse: we tend to ruminate on all this stuff, we proliferate it, we cling to it. We become ‘like tangled balls of string’, as the Buddha colorfully puts it (p.76). We need to recognise the pattern, and we need to let go of reactivity – know it, and step back from it, the second facet of the fourfold task admonishes. If we do that, what happens? We move on to the third facet. (ABW, pp. 29–30)

Task #3: See Reactivity Stop

Here comes the nirvana moment: in the Buddha’s words, ‘the traceless fading away and ceasing of that reactivity (taṇhã), the letting go and abandoning of it, freedom and independence from it’ (Samyutta Nikaya 56:11). This experience doesn’t call for a life of renunciation, highly developed technical meditation skills, or even a male rebirth in aid of monkhood... The trick here is this: to turn up for the experience, to be alert for it, and to know it for what it is – to behold it. We need to consciously affirm and valorize those moments when you see for yourself that you are free to think, speak, and act in ways that are not determined by reactivity... (ABW, p.30)

Task #4: Actualize a Path

The path consists in cultivating complete view, thought, speech, action, livelihood, effort, mindfulness, and concentration (or ‘mental integration’, which is closer to the literal meaning)... Cultivation requires ongoing care and focus....it's [also] a formula for an ethical life. It expresses the dharma's fundamental values...(ABW, p.34–35)

Seriously tackling these four tasks (or fourfold task) – which is best understood as a positive feedback loop rather than a linear progression – leads to a process of realizing our full human potential to live intelligently, compassionately and hopefully with wisdom. Alone, or with others, we can experience the deepest fulfilment that we humans are capable of experiencing.

The origin of secular Buddhism

The emergence of secular Buddhism in the west is part of the secularization that has been developing since before the Renaissance. Historically, secularity has constituted a centuries-long religious development, not a victory of science over religion. Today’s secularity is marked by a cultural decline of “enchanted” truth claims, particularly those involving supernatural phenomena or beings.

While secular Buddhists have been connected with various lineages, including Zen and Tibetan Buddhism, secular Buddhism can also be seen as a development out of certain modernizing trends within Theravāda Buddhism, the school of Buddhism now prominent in southern Asia.

Secular Buddhism represents the attempt to continue the process of rooting the dharma in modern western culture where the earlier non-monastic insight movement left off. Secular Buddhists have sought to retrieve the teachings of Gotama, the historical Buddha, while bypassing later religious appropriation and scraping away the cultural accretions of traditional forms of Buddhism.