Historical Lessons for Buddhism: Misplaced Loyalty

This New Zealander’s problem is symptomatic of a phenomenon that is actually quite common. Many Buddhists in such strongly Catholic countries as Italy, Spain and many of the Hispanic lands of Latin America have a moralistic approach to their practice. They reject Catholicism and then meditate and follow Buddhist ethics because they feel they “should” or they “must,” otherwise they will go to hell. Many Buddhists from Protestant backgrounds have a similar approach to their practice based on the Protestant work ethic. These misplaced loyalties are partially due to the misleading translation terms coined by the compilers of the early dictionaries. Because of the influence of Victorian missionary thought, these scholars called destructive actions “non-virtues,” and negative potential built up from them “sin.” 

When authoritarian Asian masters, often Tibetan, use the fear of hells to scare people into behaving well, they are also partially responsible for their Western students’ response of unconsciously adhering to their Biblical upbringing. Such a teaching style was a skillful technique used successfully for taming wild, independent mountain people and the Mongol hordes. But these masters often do not realize that, with an audience that has turned from a Catholic or Evangelic background, their ranting about hells can trigger Western moralism with its attendant feelings of guilt and so on if one is not “good.” Rather than motivating positive action, fear adds fuel to Westerners’ insecurity. It often freezes them into inactivity and difficulty in expressing even what Buddhism considers constructive feelings, lest their emotions and actions be wrong, thus proving that they are in fact “bad” people.

Teachers from the Tibetan tradition who emphasize or demonstrate in themselves fanatic guru-devotion, rather than a more level-headed wholehearted commitment to a spiritual master, are also fostering in many of their Western students a moralistic approach with its attendant fear of hell. These masters gravely warn that a breach of devotion results in an immediate fall to Vajra Hell, with unimaginable tortures, thousands times worse than in any ordinary hell. Their vivid descriptions also succeed in squelching any attempts at healthy individuality or critical thinking among their Western disciples, lest they violate the rules of proper devotion by not following to the letter what their teachers have said.

Asian masters, in general, do not try to instill in their students a fear of hells. Yet when some of them strongly insist that the technique they teach is the only correct method and it is wrong for their students to study the practices of other lineages, they too may trigger a moralistic response in their Western disciples who have rejected the values and norms of the mainstream society into which they were born. 

As small children, most of these Western students were forever asked by their parents, “Are you a good boy or good girl?” and warned, “Don’t be bad!” When they were left alone in their crib to cry, they felt abandoned because they were “bad.” They did not have the childhood experience of traditional Asians who, as babies, were most of the time strapped to the back of one of their parents or siblings, or carried on their hip, and always slept in their parents’ bed. Not only are most babies in traditional Asian societies breast-fed, but Tibetan children, for instance, are not completely weaned until they are often three or four years old. Thus, partially due to their method of upbringing, most Westerners experience deep-rooted insecurity, low self-esteem and fear of abandonment, all of which are alien feelings to most traditional Asians. 

Even though most Western Buddhists decry the values with which they were raised, strong directives from their spiritual masters, even without threats of falling to hell, cause many of them to resort to dysfunctional behavior and judgmental, self-deprecating attitudes. Insecure, they unconsciously fear being abandoned even by their teachers, because they would be “bad” if they were to disobey and study with anyone else. In this way, they remain loyal to some of the negative responses they learned from their upbringing. 

In response to traditional Asian teachers’ strong demands for an almost feudalistic exclusive loyalty to them, some Western vipassana teachers and students, unlike their counterparts following Tibetan or Zen traditions, have simply gone off and founded their own Dharma centers with their own teaching styles. In such cases, when such persons have also left behind their own native-born belief systems, it is important to be on guard against a misplaced loyalty to the Western tradition of the rebellious adolescent. Western teenagers, in rejecting the authority figures of their parents or teachers, often think that only they know what is best. This attitude frequently results in a narcissistic inflation of the importance of their own immediate feelings and a belittling of the value of a family heritage. 

This inflation and belittling can occur in a subtle, unconscious manner. For instance, suppose one is putting the main emphasis in Theravada training on experiential practice of mindfulness of one’s feelings, and neglecting scriptural study and chanting. It is, of course, very beneficial to become microscopically aware of one’s feelings and reactions in order to gain the insight into there being no solid “self” enduring behind them. But if one unconsciously overinflates the importance of one’s every feeling, one might be solipsistically drawn to express how one feels about whatever anyone else says or does, as if what one felt or thought really mattered to everyone. Such behavior is perhaps a misplaced loyalty to a rebellious adolescent past and a reenactment of the dysfunctional syndrome of overemphasizing feelings and narcissistically insisting they be attended to immediately, regardless of how this might affect others.

Furthermore, although chanting of scriptures, as if in a choir, might degenerate into a mindless, spiritless tedium, if one rejects it completely as an outmoded practice, one might be shortchanging oneself. Loyal to the rebellious teenager alienated from any sense of the value of family, one deprives oneself of the emotional and moral support of being in contact with one’s spiritual ancestors and feeling heir to their rich legacy. Dismissing textual study as irrelevant, one may be repeating the impatience with schooling of one’s youth. Although Dharma practitioners must emphasize experience, they need to be careful not to strip Buddhism of all cultural tradition to make it antiseptically modern.

In many Asian societies, individuality is an alien concept. People regard themselves as belonging to a group, whether this be a family, a tribe, the inhabitants of a valley, a monastery, the employees of a company or whatever. They do not generally rebel against a dictatorial father, abbot or employer, perhaps because they are not concerned about finding, establishing and maintaining an individual, unique identity. Their identity is as a member of a group, and groups in Asia are mostly hierarchical. Even if their family were wealthy, they were probably never asked as a child, “What do you want to eat? Do you like this? What do you want to wear?” Their personal opinion or tastes were of no consequence or concern to anyone, and since no one ever encouraged or pandered to their opinion, many Asians have learned not to think for themselves. Indian universities, for instance, reward students with high grades for repeating the opinion of experts and fail them if they express their own thoughts.

When authoritarian, conservative Asian teachers transfer this concept of group identity to the West and do not allow for individuality or creativity among their Western disciples, there is the danger of their fostering a cult mentality. This does not mean these teachers should condone iconoclastic behavior engaged in simply for the sake of being different and “making a statement.” But some Japanese Zen masters, for example, insist that all their disciples wear even the stockings from the eighth-century Chinese court costume in order to practice Zen meditation correctly. This can be yet another example of their providing the circumstances for a misplaced loyalty to arise among their Western pupils who have rejected their past. Let us look at a few examples.

British, French and Chinese students might meditate with an unconscious loyalty to their colonialist legacy of feeling cultural superiority as they consider themselves and their mode of practice the only truly civilized ones. Among German students, it can trigger a misplaced loyalty to their heritage of unquestioning obedience to the laws set down by an authoritarian figure. Some students from Latin countries may even revert unconsciously to a Spanish Inquisition attitude of intolerance towards anyone practicing Buddhism differently from themselves.

Therefore, when presenting Buddhism to a Western audience, it is important for teachers to allow for a healthy amount of individuality and to give their students a choice of several styles for any practice. If, in addition, Westerners are given the freedom to supplement their group meditational retreats with daily sessions of art, music, massage or dance, they will have a further outlet for their drive for individual creativity. This may help provide the emotional balance necessary for them to be able to follow the strict regime of the retreat without feeling claustrophobic. If Westerners are forced to deny or reject their heritage of individuality, many may react with a misplaced loyalty to their legacy of the rebellious teenager and simply walk out.

Some physical exercise would also be helpful for Western meditators to maintain a balance between body and mind. Since the West emphasizes so strongly the body and physical culture, it is not healthy for Westerners to deny and ignore completely their physical side. It may reinforce the alienation many of them already feel towards their body, which can lead to seriously neurotic behavior. Many East Asian Buddhists have traditionally supplemented their practice with some form of martial art, while numerous Tibetan Buddhists use forceful movements and clapping to punctuate their debates. If these techniques are not suitable, some form of the Theravada technique of alternating sitting and walking meditation could be beneficially adapted to other Buddhist traditions without risking the fault of “mixing.”

It is crucial, therefore, when adopting a foreign religion such as Buddhism, not to reject everything from our past, and for teachers to be sensitive to the cultural heritage of their students, such as traditional attitudes towards hells, individuality and one’s physical body. If we acknowledge the positive qualities of our familial, cultural and religious backgrounds and abandon only the negative ones, we can avoid the danger of misplaced loyalty. By remaining consciously loyal to the wholesome features and seeing how they are not contradictory with our new Buddhist beliefs, we will be better able to feel a sense of wholeness and continuity with our past. We will have a better chance of integrating Buddhism into our personal lives in a stable and healthy manner.

A useful guideline for choosing Buddhist themes relevant to our societies and times, then, may be to focus on teachings harmonious with positive aspects of our background. Adapting a form of Buddhism that emphasizes such themes and acknowledges such concordance will allow people who share that background to remain loyal to it while growing organically with a Buddhist orientation. Conscious loyalty to one’s positive heritage, coupled with mindfulness and awareness, will slowly displace unconscious, misplaced loyalty to one’s destructive legacy. Let us therefore explore some themes that resonate well with certain common features shared by many modern societies and see how they could be culturally adapted.

Buddha taught a path of love, compassion and helping others. Christianity also stresses love and, in particular, encourages social service and selfless involvement. If general Western Buddhism were likewise to emphasize the practical application of its teachings on love to service in orphanages, hospitals, old age homes, hospices, prisons, inner city ghettos and so on, and freely acknowledge how this is in keeping with Christian principles, it would allow its originally Christian practitioners to retain the self-esteem of remaining consciously loyal to their heritage while following a Buddhist path. Several Western Buddhist centers have already adopted such practice. 

Judaism developed rituals for a family to perform in their home so as to avoid dependency on temples, priests or monastic institutions during politically difficult times. Parents took responsibility to educate and train their children in the spiritual tradition of their ancestors. Modern Jews have organized religiously oriented summer camps for youngsters and after-school programs to supplement this policy. Both Christians and Jews have parochial schools that combine secular and religious education. 

Buddha similarly explained that both celibate monastics and householders with children can follow his teachings. Thus, we could comfortably evolve family-oriented Buddhist practices within this context to provide for the needs of those who choose not to become a monk or a nun. Thai and Burmese monks living in remote rural areas provide the religious and secular training for the children of their villages. Likewise, we can develop Buddhist educational programs specifically for children, but then implement them also in the home. Already some Western Buddhist organizations have produced illustrated children’s story books on themes from the Jataka tales of Buddha’s previous lives. This is an excellent beginning.

Buddha taught people not to accept his teachings simply out of respect or faith in him, but to test them for themselves as if buying gold. One of Buddha’s main points was that the deepest source of suffering is our lack of understanding of reality. The Buddhist path is one of seeing what actually exists. Science, too, seeks to understand reality. Its methodology is to verify theories with experimentation. The correlation between Buddhism and science on these points is obvious. As His Holiness the Dalai Lama has often said, if scientists can disprove rebirth or anything else in Buddha’s teachings, we must discard it in the sense of not taking it literally. We must see the purpose and deeper meaning to which Buddha intended to lead us through this teaching.

Many Indian, Tibetan and Central Asian monasteries taught Buddhism within a program of study of the ten sciences of the time. These sciences included medicine, calendar and ephemeris calculations, artistic design and literary composition. The logical extension is for modern Western as well as Asian Buddhist centers to teach Buddhism in harmony with the current sciences.

Psychology treats individual, personal problems by skillfully guiding clients to self-understanding. Buddha also emphasized knowing ourselves and being ever mindful of our thoughts, feelings, words, actions and motivation. Marxism teaches, on the basis of universal equality, the need to curb the greedy accumulation of private wealth and to share with everyone. Buddha likewise stressed the equality of oneself and others and the importance of selfless generosity. Both Buddhism and the Orthodox Christian churches have techniques for realizing one’s basic perfection and wholeness. The former elaborates these techniques in terms of Buddha-nature, while the latter in terms of humanity having been created in the image of God. There are many such Buddhist themes that resonate well with the general interests and common experiences shared by groups of modern societies. The skillful adaptation of Buddhism to these cultures will need to focus on various combinations of these themes.

When expanding on Buddhist themes that resonate well with our cultures, however, we must be careful to maintain the Buddhist aims and goals, and not those of our own society when they are in contradiction to them. For example, the Mahayana scriptures teach the transference to others of the positive potential or “merit” of our constructive acts in order to help them gain either a better rebirth, liberation or enlightenment. Our positive potential can be beneficially directed even to those in the bardo (in-between state after death).

In traditional China, Confucian ceremonies, rites and sacrifices were customarily performed in order to support the imperial state. Thus, once Buddhism was established in China, many of its emperors and empresses built national Buddhist temples in their capital. They sponsored resident monks and nuns to recite sutras, offer incense and so on, and dedicate the positive potential for the prosperity and might of the imperial dynasty and the well-being of the imperial family and ancestors. This practice arose in many other Asian Buddhist societies as well.

If one is clear that the purpose of praying and dedicating potential for the maintenance of the state is to provide the circumstances for both the immediate and ultimate benefit of its people, one is not compromising the Buddhist principles. To pray for this aim is similar to engaging in a long-life Tara or Amitayus practice to gain the opportunity to complete the spiritual path. But if one directs Buddhist practices simply for worldly gain, such as prayers for victory in the military campaigns of a colonialist empire, with no higher purpose ultimately behind them, one runs the risk of degeneration.

Therefore, we must be careful when integrating Buddhism into modern cultures. The totalitarian government of Communist Poland, for instance, at one point encouraged Buddhism within its boundaries in order to weaken the popularity of the Catholic Church. It wished to study its appeal to the youth in order to adapt those techniques to winning adherents to the Party. In Communist Bulgaria, the state was interested in learning Buddhist methods for gaining extrasensory perception and extraphysical powers in order to use them for espionage purposes and controlling the people.

Both Buddhism and the West have long traditions of art and architecture. Since Western Buddhism will naturally require artistic forms of expression, art will also be a theme that can provide continuity between Westerners’ own cultural background and their adopted Buddhist faith. 

But again, we must be careful not to reject our backgrounds in such a manner that we engender a misplaced loyalty that might cause us to go to either of two extremes when practicing Buddhist art. The first is to be loyal to the tradition of the photocopy machine and be so under-creative that we just slavishly imitate Asian forms. The other is to use bizarre styles that could be considered disrespectful or lacking in taste. This might occur due to a loyalty to the Western approach to creative art that values expressing one’s individuality, even if it is by means of shocking others. Buddhist history indicates a middle path that might avoid both extremes.

Styles of Buddhist architecture, for example, have generally changed from one cultural area to another, in accordance with the local idioms. This is true not only from one civilization to another, but within the various countries sharing many aspects of a single common culture. Not only are Indian, Thai, Chinese, Japanese and Tibetan religious structures distinct, but also within one cultural area, such as the Tibetan, the temple architecture has varied considerably. Although Ladakhi and Tibetan temples are fairly similar, Bhutanese ones are significantly different, Mongolian temples combine Tibetan and Chinese styles, while Buryat and Kalmyk religious buildings show many Russian influences. One of the reasons for this wide variety is that in most countries an important principle of architecture is for the structures to blend in with the landscape and the local forms.

It is only natural, then, that Buddhist temple architecture in Western countries will use local idioms, styles and technology, but perhaps tastefully blending in aspects of Asian forms, following the model of Mongolia, Buryatia and Kalmykia. If we merely reproduce Asian Buddhist temples in our Western countries, they will seem like buildings in a theme park or at a World’s Fair. They will not fit organically into our social environment and will seem unnatural. As a result, most people, particularly newcomers, will not feel comfortable or welcome within them since in general they will convey an alien feeling. 

Many Chan monasteries in China and Zen temples in Japan have gardens on their grounds that are inspirational for meditation. The forms in the two countries have differed in accordance with local tastes, but the basic Chan principles of simplicity and harmony with nature have remained unchanged. Likewise, when constructing meditational gardens outside of Asia, we can find inspiring landscape designs from our own traditions that meet the criteria of these principles. Even though such gardens were not part of the Tibetan tradition, certain Tibetan Dharma centers in the West, for example one in Hawaii, have also built them, in this above-mentioned manner. This has not incurred any faults of “mixing.” One of the Indian meditational texts of Asanga honored in Tibet explains the importance of a beautiful, peaceful environment with inspiring scenery as a conducive circumstance for attaining a stilled and settled mind of shamatha.

Certain forms of art have been borrowed without any change from one civilization to another, such as the depiction of mandalas (symbolic universes of tantric deities) from India to Tibet. As aids to tantric visualization, they are integral parts of a specific Buddhist practice and, as such, should not be changed when brought to the West. Other artistic forms, however, are auxiliary to practice. The Tibetans, for instance, adapted the use of tormas (cones made of barley dough) and their adorning butter sculptures as forms of offerings from their indigenous Bon culture. They did not have ready access to the rice, fruit and flowers used in India as offerings in tantric rituals. The use of tormas, however, has been limited to Tibet and its cultural areas in Central Asia and the Himalayas. The Nepali Newaris, Chinese and Japanese have all followed tantra successfully without offering tormas.

Practitioners of tantra in the West can also dispense with Tibetan-style offerings and prepare alternative ones from what people in their societies consider fine gifts. When many Tibetan masters, including His Holiness the Dalai Lama, confer initiations in the West, they substitute beautiful Western cakes and biscuits for traditional Tibetan tormas. If we wish to continue the Tibetan custom of adorning tormas with the forms of deities and stylized offerings sculpted from butter, we could depict such figures in icing on the cakes. We might also include representations of handsome offering gods. There is no need for there always to be only beautiful offering goddesses. 

The basic representation of the Buddhas and bodhisattvas in painting, sculpture and rock carvings has changed from country to country and century to century. In some places and times, the forms have been either more realistic or more stylized in accordance with the current local idiom. Buddhist artists have altered the facial features and robes of figures to reflect those of the audience and adapted the backgrounds and arrangements of the figures on the canvas to local tastes. Buddha-figures painted in China, for instance, have Chinese faces and are surrounded by Chinese landscapes; while those in northwestern India or central Tibet reflect the people of these areas. Buddha statues from Thailand are surrounded by the distinctive ornamentation style of this land. The basic form of the Buddha with the thirty-two characteristic features, however, has remained recognizable regardless of different artistic schools.

Although some Western artists might wish to master and preserve specific Asian styles, nevertheless, there is no reason why they could not paint and sculpt Buddha-figures with European features and Western-style musculature while still retaining the standard poses and forms. We might also be flexible with the arrangements and backgrounds in Western Buddhist paintings, while keeping the general composition and tone appropriately respectful. In this way we will tread a middle path between being under- or over-creative and avoid any misplaced loyalty to our past. We can still be creative, but more appropriately in an Asian, rather than Western mode.

Although Kashmir, Nepal, Tibet and China have developed distinctive artistic styles for depicting tantric meditational deities, they have retained the basic, original Indian forms, postures, clothing and jewelry of these figures. If we follow historical precedent, then, there is no need to change the idiom of the number of faces and arms of these deities in the West, especially since these are an integral part of prescribed tantric visualization practices. We should not feel that since these are alien to our culture, we could better visualize deities on the model of Christian angels or saints. The multiple limbs of the figures represent various realizations. By visualizing themselves in these forms, tantric practitioners try to expand their minds to hold simultaneously all the levels of symbolism.

Both Western and traditional Asian Buddhist cultures have stylized representations of their outstanding cultural and religious figures. Substituting more familiar Western notables for Buddhist ones in tantric meditations, however, would be another form of a misplaced loyalty. Misplaced loyalty is not limited to expressing or projecting only negative aspects of one’s heritage, but also inappropriate ones as well. 

A Buddha can manifest in any form, even as a bridge, in order to benefit others. Yet there must be a definite spiritual need and purpose for any specific form. The Manchus made Confucius into a tantric meditational deity with full ritual practice. The Mongols elevated Genghis Khan into a Dharma protector, while Nyingma practitioners in Kham did likewise with King Gesar of Ling, the hero of the most popular Tibeto-Mongolian folk epic. The Manchu emperors, in turn, identified King Gesar, this national symbol of the Tibetans and Mongols they sought to rule, with the Chinese god of war, Guandi, whom they had adopted as the military protector of their Qing Dynasty. They then built temples to him in major centers of population in Tibet and Mongolia.

Furthermore, some Buryat Mongol leaders of Siberia, wishing peace with Russia, identified the ruling Czarina with Tara, while some Tibetans, seeking to avoid conflict with colonialist Britain, regarded Queen Victoria as a manifestation of the forceful Dharma protectress Palden Lhamo. These various examples reflect political considerations by rulers for fostering national unification, not religious needs. They do not set a precedent that we need to follow.

The Indian Buddhist masters made the originally Hindu gods Ganesh, Sarasvati and Garuda into Buddhist deities, perhaps as a move to counter the absorption of Buddhism into Hinduism. The Kalachakra system likewise included numerous Hindu deities in its mandala and indirectly stated the reason. In order to withstand a threatened invasion by hostile forces, Hindus and Buddhists must unite through receiving together the Kalachakra initiation and forming one religious caste. But despite these efforts to absorb Hinduism into Buddhism, the Dharma was eventually lost in India. These examples are likewise irrelevant for setting a precedent.

There is no need, then, for Westerners to make Jesus, Mary or Martin Luther King into full-fledged tantric Buddhist deities. Several Tibetan masters have suggested that Westerners might use the visualized form of Jesus or Mary for developing single-minded concentration and even imagine purifying rays of light and inspiration flowing into their own hearts from them. But they do not suggest people imagining these Christian figures holding tantric implements, nor do they instruct people to visualize themselves as assuming these forms. Likewise, no one is suggesting making tantric offerings to Hitler, Lenin or Mao as Dharma protectors. There is neither political nor military advantage to be gained by merging religions or ideologies in this way.

Periodically, the Buddha Vajradhara has revealed himself in new forms, usually as a variant manifestation of a standard Buddhist deity. These have appeared to highly realized masters in pure visions or in terma (treasure text) findings when the practice of the more common forms of these deities had become so publicly known that it had lost its vitality and strength of inspiration.

There is no reason to believe that these pure-vision and treasure-text traditions will not continue in the future. But we must make sure that these revelations are authentic. To prove their validity, great meditators should be able to gain actual realizations through the practice of these new tantric deity forms. The signs of valid realization and attainment, such as becoming rid of one’s disturbing mental states, selfishness and misunderstandings of voidness, are clearly outlined in the standard texts. Even if there were to be a pure vision revelation of Jesus or Mary as a tantric deity, their practice must be able to pass this test.

Western culture has a long heritage of seeking utopias. Either we wish to recover utopias of the past or create new ones in the future. Several Buddhist cultures have also focused on the utopian ideal. Indian thought, both Hindu and Buddhist, has glorified the golden ages of the past as strongly as have the ancient Greeks. With the theory of cyclic history, the Buddhists can look forward to future golden ages as well, such as with the coming of Maitreya, the future Buddha, or the victory of the forces of Shambhala over the destructive powers of anti-spiritual hordes. The Mahayana sutras abound with magnificent descriptions of Buddha-fields adorned with innumerable gems. 

The Pure Land school developed in northwestern India in the first century BCE, perhaps in resonance with the Persian Zoroastrian teachings on a Paradise of Light. The followers of Pure Land Buddhism seek rebirth in Sukhavati, the pure land of Amitabha, the Buddha of Infinite Light. The Chinese, in turn, picked up on the theme of pure land teachings, which fit very nicely with their native Daoist quest for the Western Paradise of the Immortals. They identified Amitabha with Amitayus, the Buddha of Infinite Life.

If we choose in the West to focus on Buddhist utopian themes for our cultural adaptations, we must be careful again of misplaced loyalty. There are at least two varieties, the American and the Russian.

The classical utopian dream in the United States has been “Go West, young man,” and find the golden land of unlimited opportunity and freedom. The negative side of this dream is the God-given right to bear arms and defend this promised land from all heathens. A misplaced loyalty to this self-righteous aspect would be to try to set up an ideal Buddhist community and defend it patriotically against the outside with uniformed “Dharma guards.” Such an ideal can quickly degenerate into a classic cult, with paranoid followers living inside a holy armed fortress, following the orders of a demagogue. 

There have been several examples of militaristic utopian movements even in the history of Asian Buddhism, usually blended with nationalistic aspirations. But it would be misguided to try to imitate them now in the West. In the mid-sixth century, for example, King Jinheung of the Silla Kingdom of Korea, a great patron of Buddhism, established the “hwarang” system. The hwarang were handsome young men from aristocratic families whom he recruited and gave special physical and Buddhist spiritual training. The King saw himself as the chakravartin (wheel-turning universal emperor) of Tushita, the Pure Land of Maitreya. He told the hwarang they were emanations of Maitreya, and he used them in his military campaigns to unify Korea and establish it as the Pure Land Tushita on earth. 

King Jinheung’s success inspired Emperor Wen, the ruthless founder of the Chinese Sui Dynasty a few years later, to likewise declare himself a chakravartin emperor. Using this guise as part of his political strategy, he reunified China for the first time in three and a half centuries, declaring that with his dynasty he had established a Buddhist pure land.

In thirteenth-century Japan, Nichiren decried other Buddhist traditions that emphasized either the historical figure of Shakyamuni Buddha or such Buddha-figures as Amitabha to the neglect of the eternal Buddha of the Lotus Sutra. With Nichiren having made the historical Buddha less central, his spiritual descendants went further and said that the time of Shakyamuni Buddha is over and now is the period of Nichiren.

Nichiren taught that chanting homage to the name of the Lotus Sutra, “Nam-myo Ho-ren-ge Kyo,” is sufficient for attaining Buddhahood, since it contains the essence of Buddha’s ultimate teaching. He believed his mission was to save the Japanese nation from social and political disasters that were a consequence of its holding inferior religious views. Adding a Japanese nationalist flavor to Buddhism was especially effective at a time when Japan was facing the threat of a Mongol invasion. Nichiren said that if everyone in Japan recited this formula of praise to the Lotus Sutra, Japan could become a paradise on earth. He also said that Japan had the responsibility to preserve the Buddha’s teachings, and thus he encouraged people to practice Buddhism in order to be good Japanese citizens.

Nichiren’s vision of Japan as an earthly Buddha-field attracted many followers, and gradually the Nichiren sect placed more emphasis on the worldly sphere as it fused the Buddhist teachings with a nationalistic view of Japan’s superiority. In the twentieth century, the Soka Gakkai political party developed from the Nichiren sect as a nationalistic Japanese political movement.

With misplaced loyalty to the patriotic, militaristic aspects of the “American dream,” Western Buddhists seeking a pure land could easily form a political group bent on taking over the local civil government of their area in order to insure the freedom of their utopian Buddhist communes. They could also supplant Shakyamuni Buddha with their own spiritual leader around whom they could make a nationalistic cult. The United States has already had several traumatic experiences with religious cults and would readily label Buddhism yet another cult religion of fanatics if some of its followers were to go in this direction. 

The Russian variation of the quest for a utopia centers around the Orthodox Christian spiritual path of seeking to return to the original state of created perfection. A great deal of the Russian Orthodox church service is conducted by clerics behind closed partitions in a vestibule at the back of the altar. The devotees stand in front, genuflecting and lighting candles, listening to the invisible heavenly service as if it were coming from the transcendent, utopian spheres. They are inspired to follow a spiritual path through which they will be miraculously drawn back to the transcendent, original state.

The negative side of this utopian dream is the attitude that some all-mighty force in heaven is going to save us and therefore we should just look up for help. Many Russians projected such an attitude onto the czars, the Communist state, and now [in the 1990s] onto the United States which they expect to save them from economic catastrophe. Many ufology societies throughout the former Soviet Union are devoted to making contact with flying saucers, which are likewise going to save them from disaster.

With misplaced loyalty to this aspect of looking to enter a paradise through help from a utopian land or people in the sky, several prominent Russians, such as Madame Blavatsky and Nikolai and Helena Roerich, have projected this aspect of utopia onto the Buddhist ideal realm of Shambhala. Convinced that Shambhala, the prototype for the Western dream of Shangri-La, existed somewhere hidden in the Himalayas or the Gobi Desert, they led expeditions to find it. They proclaimed that great spiritual figures from Shambhala psychically sent them teachings that will save humanity. They codified these into the systems of Theosophy and Agni Yoga respectively.

Even Hitler sent an expedition to Tibet in search of help from Shambhala to conquer the world and establish a utopia populated by a super-race. He was perhaps influenced by his early spiritualist studies and the popular 1920s German novels and short stories by Gustav Meyrink, which describe Tibetan tantric rites and how a Tibetan master secretly caused the circumstances for the outbreak of the First World War through black magical means. 

In 1939, Ernst Schäfer led this German mission, which was purportedly sent for scientific, botanical research. The Tibetan government formally invited them, perhaps thinking to balance British colonialist influence, which they always mistrusted, even from before the Younghusband expedition against Tibet. Although Schäfer filmed the Losar (new year) celebration, which so impressed Hitler that he ordered more movies to be made, nothing further came from this mission. The Nechung oracle had warned the Tibetans against the Germans, saying that although they bring sweet offerings and speak kind words, their leader is like a dragon. The oracle advised everyone to pray that there be no war between the British and the Germans, which would have terrible consequences for Tibet as well.

Undeterred, Hitler turned to the Kalmyk Mongols for help. Since the first half of the eighteenth century when Catherine the Great had settled Germans along the lower Volga River, the Germans and Kalmyks had lived there as neighbors. During the next century, several Germans became acquainted with the Kalmyk style of Tibetan Buddhism and some scholars translated Kalmyk folk tales. When Hitler invaded the Volga region, many Kalmyks fought on the side of the Nazis, thinking anything would be better than the oppressive rule of Stalin. A number of Kalmyks, together with a few of their monks, retreated to Poland with the repulsed Nazi troops. Hitler enlisted these monks to perform what he considered magic rites to ensure the success of his utopian dream. The Kalmyks, however, prayed in general for peace.

Thus, Russians and other followers of Orthodox Christianity, and people influenced by spiritualist thinking, who decide to focus on utopian Pure Land teachings in their adaptation of Buddhism, need to be on guard. They must be cautious about unconscious tendencies to sit back and wait for miracles or telepathic messages to come from Shambhala or the Pure Lands to save them, or the hope that performing tantric rituals will magically relieve them of all their problems. The people in the lands of the former Soviet Union must also be careful that their current fascination with dzogchen also does not conceal a hidden quest for a utopian-like method that will instantly transport them into a transcendent realm without any work or effort on their part.

To avoid misplaced loyalties arising, we must not totally reject our cultural background but find themes within them that appear in common in Buddhism as well. When emphasizing these themes in our cultural adaptations of Buddhism, we must be on guard for the specific forms that misplaced loyalty might take. This requires a sensitive understanding and objective evaluation of the various aspects of our Western background. 

Often, in our uneducated chauvinism, we feel that our own approaches, values and ways of thinking are universal. When we become more aware of the variety of cultures in the world, we shall be able to begin seeing how some of our attitudes are culturally specific. Once we can identify those aspects of our systems of thought and ways of life that are our cultural envelope, we can begin to discriminate between those features of it that are helpful and appropriate for our adopting a new religion and those that are not. The process of transmitting Buddhism from one culture to another requires penetrating insight into the cultural envelopes of not only the traditional Asian Buddhist societies, but of our own as well.