Historical Lessons for Buddhism: Successes and Failures of Adaptations

One of the main reasons for the persecution of Buddhism in these above cases, unlike in India, was the economic drain placed by the monasteries on the people and state. A specific number of households in each of these societies had been assigned to financially support and feed each monk. Donations were no longer made purely on a voluntary basis, and the monasteries had become too lavish and rich. 

In modern societies as well, we must be careful not to put too much pressure on people to financially support the monasteries and Dharma centers but must leave it solely to voluntary contributions. Otherwise, people will become disgusted with Buddhism if it appears to them as overly materialistic and concerned primarily with building ostentatiously extravagant temples and facilities. 

Even when generous contributions are given on a voluntary basis, as when the Chinese imperial court made lavish offerings to the Tibetan monasteries during the Ming Dynasty from the mid-fourteenth to the mid-seventeenth century, we must not use them simply to build luxurious centers and enormous gold-plated statues. Many Han Chinese officials complained bitterly that the Ming emperors were draining the state resources, squandering them on the parasitic foreign monk community. The local Chinese population likewise became hostile to the Tibetan form of Buddhism because of the excesses of its government’s support of religious institutions to the neglect of its own people. If Dharma centers and monasteries in the West receive large donations beyond their immediate modest needs, it would be better for them to channel these back into projects that would benefit the local community around them.

One could argue that building ornately decorated temples and magnificent giant Buddha statues allows the patrons and visiting devotees to accumulate great merit and attracts local people. A historical example is tenth-century western Tibet where the kings sponsored visits by Kashmiri artisans and artists to construct fabulous temples, which helped to restore Buddhism in Tibet. But when people visit Buddhist temples and monuments as tourists and are extremely disrespectful in their behavior, one wonders how much merit these people actually accumulate.

When the temples are filled with gold and precious gems, they attract more thieves. When the Communist Chinese sacked the treasures of the Buddhist monasteries in Tibet, Inner Mongolia, East Turkestan and even in their own Han Chinese land and melted down the gold for bullion and sold the art treasures in the markets of Hong Kong, surely, they built up great negative potential. And it was precisely the lavish material expressions of faith that provided the opportunity for these people’s ethical downfall.

Milarepa kept almost no material objects or offerings in his cave. Once when a thief came to rob him in the night, Milarepa said, “How can you find anything to steal here in the dark, when there is nothing here even in daylight?” Likewise, it might be better for Westerners to follow the style of the early Buddhist monks of India and the forest monks of Thailand and be simple in their material displays of devotion. If Western Buddhist temples and centers are modest and in good taste, and use their funds to help with humanitarian projects, potential patrons are likely to be more generous in their gifts. Afterall, a Buddhist temple or organization should aim to serve not merely the devotional needs of its members, but also the greater needs of all sentient beings.

The Western monks at Amaravati Monastery in southern England beg their food, in Thai forest monk style, from the local townspeople. But even they must receive a great deal of their financial support from sponsors in Thailand. Although Mormons pay an annual tithe to their church, most Western Buddhists would not do likewise. It is far more realistic for Western Buddhist institutions to be economically self-sufficient and modest in their needs as were the eighth-century Chan monasteries of southern China where the monks grew their own food. It is not necessary for Western Buddhist centers to become agricultural communes, but it might be helpful to begin what the Friends of the Western Buddhist Order call “right livelihood businesses,” such as importing and selling Asian goods or operating vegetarian restaurants.

Buddha explained that right livelihood means to earn one’s living without dishonest means. Many Chinese, Tibetan and Mongolian monasteries not only exploited the free labor of those who worked their lands and pastures, but acted as moneylenders, charging usurious rates. Of course, many laypeople, forced from birth by law or social custom and pressure to work for the monasteries, felt they were building up merit and did not protest. But those in power often saw the situation otherwise, as economic exploitation rather than right livelihood. Therefore, it is important for modern Dharma organizations to pay their staff and the workers of their businesses proper wages and provide normal social benefits. Otherwise, they will similarly be accused of exploitation in the name of allowing their workers to “build up merit.”

Many residential Dharma centers run weekend or longer courses and often rent out their facilities for the activities of other groups, such as yoga or tai chi. Usually the staff of these centers, mostly the longest-term residents with the greatest commitment, must administer and sometimes even cook for these courses. Although they might benefit greatly from attending, they must work instead as if running a conference center or hotel. They can become very frustrated and resentful. It would be better to hire professionals to run these courses, paying them a normal wage.

Although the peasants who worked the fields or tended the herds of the Chinese, Tibetan and Mongolian monasteries were not slaves, they were indentured laborers. They could never make enough money to leave, even if they were given the freedom to do so. Likewise, some poorer Westerners have become indentured laborers at Dharma centers.

Although living at a Dharma center might not be as expensive as renting one’s own apartment, still many people cannot afford it. Except for the independently wealthy and those who live in the few countries of Western Europe still left with extensive social benefits for the unemployed, most people must work. But when centers are located in the countryside, far from any place of possible employment, the problem is even more difficult. Even if centers are located in the cities, there is no guarantee that people can find jobs. 

Therefore, a number of residents at Dharma centers must work in the kitchen, office or on the grounds in lieu of their fees. If they are given any wages at all, it is no more than pocket money. They become, in fact, modern indentured laborers. Although they might feel or be made to feel that their service is an offering and they are building up merit, their parents will feel their children are being exploited by a cult. We must be very careful. It is far better for such needy members of a center to work for its “right livelihood businesses” and draw a proper salary.

If the rent or mortgage and running expenses of a center, and even the professional staff for administering courses, are paid from the income from such businesses, there will be no need to charge high fees for courses, which many people find exorbitant and so cannot afford to come. There will also be no need to rent out the facilities of a Dharma center to non-Buddhist groups, which many find a bit odd. Those who attend residential courses can simply make voluntary offerings for their food and the teacher, as is the custom in traditional Buddhist countries of Asia. Also centers can avoid the pitfalls of buying old, dilapidated cheap buildings for their facilities and then having to make their residents spend the next ten or twenty years in construction work rather than in studying and practicing the Dharma.

Sometimes the very wealthy family of a Western Buddhist practitioner will donate a large building for establishing a Dharma center. This has often caused problems. Sometimes, the family’s motivation was to keep its child in its own country and out of Asia. The family has then tried to control and manipulate the center, which has caused a conflict of interest among the members. On the one hand, they do not wish to lose this family’s financial support, but on the other, the child of that family might not be the most qualified person to administer or teach at the center.

Family-owned Dharma centers in Latin America have had an additional problem. In general, members of the center will not make any contributions or help with the upkeep of a center when they feel it belongs to a wealthy family. Why should they give money or services to those of the privileged class? Consequently, the members do not take care of the center as if it were their own. This occurs even if the wealthy family has only donated the building and is not contributing anything further.

These problems can be avoided if a group of people who wish to found a Dharma center work all together with a right livelihood business to finance and support it. If only one person wants to make a center and proceeds without any initial popular support, it will be very difficult in the future to gain a broad basis of members’ committed participation.

Many monasteries in Tibet were founded by wealthy aristocratic families, whose members then formed a family dynasty of abbots or head lamas. Except in some of the Sakya lineages, such dynastic rules led to a degeneration of religious purpose as these noble families used their monastic base for engaging in power politics and waging civil wars.

Throughout history, Buddhist monasteries and nunneries have often received many privileges from the state. They have enjoyed tax-exempt status, and their members have been excused not only from taxes, but also from state corvee labor and military service. But sometimes these monasteries have merely taken advantage of these privileges to build up great wealth. Society members have also taken advantage of this situation to take refuge in the monasteries as havens from state obligations and to avoid military conscription. When monasteries have been exempted from the jurisdiction of civil law, as they were occasionally in China, they even came to harbor criminals. The backlash received from governments from such abuses has often been disastrous, causing either suppression of Buddhism or its severe restriction. The Korean experience can be very instructive.

The early Korean kings built many Buddhist monasteries and exempted them from all taxes, feeling that the merit from so doing would insure peace and prosperity for the state. In the mid-tenth century, one of the kings instituted a system of national examinations for the monks, based on knowledge of the Buddhist scriptures. It was modelled after the customs of the Chinese civil service that this king also established in his land. The monks received clerical ranks based on the results of these examinations and formed a bureaucratic organization whose main function was to perform rituals for the welfare of the state.

As a result, the monasteries did not feel the need to serve the masses, since their support was provided totally from the state and all their activities were directed towards serving the government. Many people became monks simply as a means to gain professional success and economic security. Furthermore, the monasteries became increasingly wealthy and comfortable as they continued to enjoy exemption from all taxes.

A backlash occurred by the end of the fourteenth century. The Yi (Joseon) Dynasty kings withdrew the tax-exempt status of the monasteries and banned the construction of new temples. They instituted a state license system for the monks and nuns and soon confiscated all monastic lands and severely limited the number of monasteries.

The state restrictions became ever worse as the government steadily withdrew its support of Buddhism. By the beginning of the sixteenth century, the Korean kings had eliminated the state-sanctioned and sponsored official procedures for becoming a monk or a nun and abolished completely the monk examination system. They even banned all monks and nuns from the capital. Thus, by the beginning of the sixteenth century, Buddhism had retreated totally to the mountains. There, the meditational tradition of Son, the Korean version of Chinese Chan, with its monks’ and nuns’ lineages, continued on a modest scale, while certain Pure Land practices survived among the lowest classes. The other Korean Buddhist traditions were lost.

Because of its previous governmental role and aloof attitude, Buddhism had not taken root among the Korean people. It had never been dissociated from the state apparatus and, for the most part, lacked the energy to survive on its own once that state support was withdrawn. Son survived primarily because of its practitioners’ deep commitment to ethics, discipline and meditation.

In some modern traditional Buddhist regions, such as Thailand, Mongolia, Bhutan, the Russian republics of Buryatia, Kalmykia and Tuva, and the refugee Tibetan community in India, the state still helps to support the Buddhist monastic community. In Western countries, however, lacking the custom of royal patronage or state funding for religion, most Buddhist centers must rely on private sponsors. Yet sometimes the people in Western monasteries or centers simply bask in the privileges gained from being financially sponsored, as did the ancient Korean monks and nuns. They have entered these institutes perhaps because either they did not want to make a living themselves or could not form a stable relationship with someone. Or they might have wanted to claim being a conscientious objector so they could avoid compulsory military service. Or perhaps they entered because of a combination of all these reasons and others, but without having any deep or sincere spiritual interest.

If this is the case, the sponsors will inevitably lose interest in continuing to support people who are in these Buddhist institutes only for a free ride. And without their help, the monasteries and centers will lack the energy and resources to continue themselves. If they have never provided any services to the community around them, but always remained aloof, self-righteous and smug, they cannot expect any public support. They will soon have to close.

People in Thailand hold monks in extremely high esteem. They feel that the monastic community has the power to fend off harm from the spirit world surrounding their villages. The monks must be placed in an elevated social position not only out of respect for their vows and robes, but also so that they can maintain their supernatural power.

But the seeming aloofness of Thai monks does not mean that they are disconnected from their society. In most Thai villages, since the beginning of the twentieth century, although now rare, the monks provide the children with religious and secular education at schools that they run on the monastic grounds. The Thais adopted this idea from the Burmese, whose monks began such programs about a century earlier. 

Also, as is the Thai custom, most village men, as unmarried teenagers, will have taken robes and joined the monastic community for a short time. Thus, they maintain a lifelong emotional bonding with the monasteries. Parents and families will naturally offer food for the monks since they will at some time have a son among their ranks. 

Therefore, it is essential for Western Buddhist monasteries and centers always to be committed to study, practice and social service. This is especially true when they receive stable financial support from patrons. The modern movement of “Engaged Buddhism” started in Thailand is an excellent start to forming a closer connection between Buddhists and society.

Another reason for the repressions of Buddhism in China and Tibet, which was also not shared with the Indian situation, was political interference by monastics in the affairs of the state, motivated primarily by ultraconservative self-interest. The abbots of Samye Monastery in ninth-century Tibet, for instance, not only held a ministerial position in the government, but tried to control all decisions of the state. In reaction, King Langdarma closed all the monasteries and persecuted the monks. Later, during the first half of the twentieth century, the conservative monasteries blocked all attempts at modernization and government reform in Tibet, which paved the way for the Communist Chinese takeover and devastation.

A similar situation of monastic manipulation of the government occurred during the early history of Buddhism in Japan. It did not lead to a total repression of the religion, only to strong state restrictions. But government control of religion can lead to a loss of vitality and suffocation of any true spiritual growth.

The early Japanese state supported and built Buddhist monasteries to pray for the welfare of the nation, and by the eighth century, monks took on administrative government roles. As in many premodern Asian societies, the Buddhist monks were one of the few literate classes. Some served as scribes and clerks in the imperial court. Others helped plan and supervise public works. The monastic community grew, and the temples became wealthy.

Initially, monks’ and nuns’ ordination in Japan was private and individual. But in the mid-eighth century, the Nara government established an official ordination system. It authorized ordination at three temples only, the main one being in the capital, Nara. In this way, the state could control the official monastic population, which came primarily from the noble class.

This system led to an almost feudalistic hierarchic structure within the community of monasteries, parallel to the Japanese political situation. The monk nobility at the peak of this hierarchy, like great feudal lords, interfered more and more in governmental and secular affairs.

Thus, at the beginning of the Heian Period at the end of the eighth century, the emperor was compelled to sever the relationship between Buddhism and the state. He forbade monks to engage in political matters and placed Buddhism under even stricter state control. Increased government interference in monastic affairs, however, eventually led to protests by the monks and the arming of some monasteries under the protection of local samurai warriors. This considerably changed the atmosphere of the monasteries.

A final example of the self-defeating consequences of monasteries vying with the government occurred during the twelfth- and early thirteenth-century proto-Manchu Jurchen rule of northern China. The early Jurchen emperors strongly patronized Buddhism and built many temples. The vast number of monks in their empire, however, soon held a more respected, higher position in society than the officials of the imperial court. They threatened the government’s power over the people and formed a direct challenge to state authority.

In reaction, the imperial court enacted measures to curb the power of the monks. The Jurchen emperor forbade the building of new temples and, inspired by the Korean custom, made prospective new monks pass a state examination on selected Buddhist scriptures before they could receive ordination. This effectively limited the number of monastics and raised their quality. People could not join the monasteries simply as a means for gaining political power. 

The Jurchen government did not settle, however, with merely controlling who entered the monasteries as a way to purify the religious community and eliminate potential political rivals. It also used the monasteries as a source of revenue, requiring them to pay taxes on ordinations, robes and repairs made to their buildings. This put a great strain on new monks and harmed the community.

Thus, we must be very careful in modern societies to keep a strict separation between church and state. Although a benevolent government might help to ensure the quality of monastics by instituting examinations on the Buddhist scriptures, with a change of political ideology, this state involvement could turn grotesque. In the former Soviet Union and Peoples’ Republic of Mongolia, and at present in Tibet, Inner Mongolia and East Turkestan under military rule by the Peoples’ Republic of China, and in North Korea, the Communist government regulates membership in monasteries according to a candidate’s Marxist purity. State regulation of monastics in modern Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar has also been very oppressive.

Furthermore, although it is appropriate for those compassionately concerned with the welfare of others to participate in government in order to bring about positive change, we must remain on guard for religious demagogues seeking power and position. They will only lead the Buddhist community on a course of self-destruction as their actions will inevitably bring on damaging government reprisals.

In the 1920’s, Baron Ungern von Sternberg, a Russian of German heritage, declared himself the incarnation of Genghis Khan, the Dharma protector of Mongolia. Many thought he was even Mahakala. With infamous cruelty, he fought the Bolsheviks and Chinese Nationalists in an attempt to win the independence of Mongolia under the spiritual leadership of the traditional head of Outer Mongolian (Khalkha) Buddhism, the Eighth Jebtsundamba Khutugtu, and his own political rule. His defeat by Bolshevik troops from Siberia contributed to the eventual Russian takeover of Mongolia and later destruction of almost all its monasteries.

Sometimes, however, it is necessary for monks and nuns to protest and interfere with oppressive government policies in order to end them. This must be done, however, with the aim of benefiting society as a whole, not just out of conservative or opportunistic self-interest. But when monks take up arms or employ the military in its service, they have gone far astray from Buddha’s teachings on nonviolence. Although Buddha permitted bodhisattvas to use force to stop harm to others when all peaceful methods have failed, he never intended monasteries to become armed fortresses.

When Saicho founded the Tiantai school in early ninth-century Japan, the Heian government was reluctant at first to accept its new monastery on Mount Hiei. But five years after its founder’s death, the emperor granted Mount Hiei the status of a head temple with the right to bestow official ordination. Over the next few centuries, the monastery grew to an enormous size, with the government still asserting its authority over it by nominally sanctioning its right to ordain. 

By the eleventh century, Mount Hiei Monastery had grown so large, however, that the monks began to demand autonomy from the state. Unlike the monks of Korea who quietly acquiesced to government restrictions, the monks of Mount Hiei held mass political demonstrations in the capital. By the twelfth century, the monastery had its own armed retainers of samurai warriors. Its struggle for political autonomy had led many of the monks far astray from their religious aims.

From the mid-fourteenth century, feudal lords divided Japan and civil wars ravaged the land. Most of the Buddhist monasteries became military forts as their monks armed themselves for defense. At the end of the sixteenth century, Oda Nobunaga ended this period of Buddhist military involvement and eventually destroyed all fortified temples. He burned Mount Hiei Monastery to the ground.

Another example is from late nineteenth and early twentieth century Tibet. Several extremely conservative Gelug monasteries near Lhasa rebelled at that time against government decisions to modernize. Their monks instigated small civil wars over these issues. The government was forced to shell these monasteries and empty them of their arms.

When monastic principles degenerate to the point that monks enter into armed conflict in order to preserve their own power, something is wrong. Such self-preserving action stands in marked contrast to the more socially oriented nonviolent protests of some Buddhist monastics in modern times. When Vietnamese monks committed self-immolation in order to protest the American-Vietnamese War, and Tibetan monks and nuns nowadays march in Lhasa chanting slogans in protest against the Chinese Communist oppressive rule, they are not acting out of self-interest. Their protests are made for the benefit of all. Likewise, if modern Western Buddhist monastics and lay practitioners engage in social protest against, for instance, environmental degradation and nuclear proliferation, they must be sure of their motivation and always attempt to use nonviolent means. 

If we ask why Buddhism survived the destruction of its monasteries in China, Tibet, Mongolia and Russia, one of the reasons was the absence of another strong and accommodating system to provide for the spiritual interests and needs of the people. When Buddhism was suppressed in fifth-century China, it had already adapted many native Chinese forms from Neo-Daoism and Confucian “Mystery Studies.” Many “gentry Buddhists” in southern China delighted in poetic discussion of metaphysical issues while living an isolated, natural life communing with the beauties of nature. But the Chinese culture of that time had not yet reciprocated by adopting any Buddhist forms. It would be many centuries before Neo-Confucianism would develop to carry on the Buddhist investigation of voidness within the context of the traditional Chinese concern with the relation between being and non-being. Thus, the persecuted Buddhists of fifth-century China, having nowhere to turn within Chinese culture to continue their spiritual interests, held on to their faith.

When the Buddhists of China were persecuted once more in the ninth century, however, the philosophically oriented schools were lost as Neo-Confucianism met the needs of their adherents. Only the Chinese Chan and Pure Land sects survived. The former did so because its monasteries were agriculturally self-sufficient and did not need to rely on society’s official support. The latter survived because it was a widespread mass movement requiring very little Buddhist education or meditational practice and promising a paradisial pure-land respite from suffering and chaos for those with faith.

Another example is in Tibet. By the time of King Langdarma’s suppression of the monasteries, Buddhism had adapted to the native tradition of Bon. It had incorporated such features as divination, oracles and driving away harmful forces by offering a scapegoat of sculpted barley flour. But Bon had not yet actively demonstrated any features in common with Buddhism. These aspects surfaced in Bon only after Buddhism’s revival in the eleventh century. Thus, when monastic Buddhism was lost in ninth-century Tibet, Buddhist belief was kept by the ngagpa community of lay tantric practitioners despite the absence of uniquely Buddhist institutions for them. A further possible reason is even if we grant that Bon had features, such as dzogchen, in common with the Buddhism of that time, this native tradition had already been weakened to the point that it was not a viable alternative for absorbing and providing for the Buddhists’ needs.

Likewise, although Buddhism had tried to accommodate to early twentieth-century Bolshevism in Russia and Mongolia by emphasizing non-private ownership as practiced in the early Indian Buddhist monastic communities, Communism made no reciprocal effort to make room in its ideology for Buddhism. Thus, when the Stalinist forces of the thirties and the Maoist of the sixties and seventies destroyed the monasteries, there was no place in Communism for Buddhists to continue even a semblance of their practices and beliefs. Therefore, the local populations secretly adhered to their Buddhist faith.

At the present time, the system that seems the most capable of absorbing Buddhism should any repression occur is psychology. Therefore, now when there has not yet developed a full form of Buddhist psychotherapy, it might be a wise precaution not to encourage it. Otherwise, in times of religious persecution, Buddhists might find their spiritual and intellectual needs fulfilled by psychology and will find no reason to maintain their previous commitment. If Buddhism retains its unique identity, then other aspects of its teachings and practice besides psychologically oriented techniques will stand a better chance of surviving any future crisis.

One of the reasons why Buddhism was able to revive after its suppression in fifth-century China and ninth-century Tibet was its receipt of royal patronage. One might think that an equivalent asset for supporting Buddhism in the modern world would be the endorsement of it by famous figures from the entertainment or sports worlds. But there is the danger of Buddhism becoming merely a fad through such publicity, and many people would not take it seriously.

Far more stable and respectable a source for establishing Buddhism as a valid tradition is the endorsement of it by the academic world. In places where there is interest in Buddhism, yet most of the people are unfamiliar with it, such as in the former and present Communist countries, Latin America, Africa and the Middle East, the public will be more likely to take Buddhism seriously and treat it with respect if they hear lectures about it and receive meditational instruction at universities or academies of science. If the only venue for learning about Buddhism is Dharma centers, people may think it a cult and react negatively.

The Theravada countries of South and Southeast Asia all went through periods during which their people followed a complicated mixture of Hinduism and several forms of Buddhism. None of these hybrids lasted. Royal patronage replaced them all with a simpler and purer form of Buddhism, Theravada. Let us look at the history to learn another factor for establishing the stability of Buddhism.

The Theravada tradition came to Sri Lanka in the third century BCE. By the third and fourth centuries CE, Mahayana forms thrived as well. Even some tantras were eventually present. During the later part of the first millennium, repeated raids from the southern Indian Tamil kingdom brought Hinduism as well. Many people now followed a mixture of all these traditions, plus aspects of their native Sri Lankan spirit cult. When the Sri Lankan king liberated the island from Tamil rule in the early eleventh century, he revived Theravada and its monks’ ordination lineage in a pure form from its few remaining monasteries in Tamil Nadu. He established Theravada as the state religion.

The mid-eleventh century unifier of Myanmar, King Anawrahta, instituted the southern Burmese tradition of Theravada blended with Vaishnava Hinduism in northern Myanmar, where a mixture of Indian tantric and non-tantric forms of Mahayana, some aspects of Chinese Buddhism and the local sacrificial Ari religion had flourished. The king quickly, however, established cultural contact with Sri Lanka, and over the next century the Burmese renewed their textual and monks’ ordination lineages from Sri Lanka in order to firmly establish the Theravada tradition in a pure form. Even the early thirteenth-century influx into northern Myanmar of Mahayana monks fleeing the destruction of their monasteries in the central part of northern India did not reverse this trend favoring an unmixed form of Buddhism.

Before King Ramkhamhaeng unified Thailand in the mid-thirteenth century, this country consisted of many small kingdoms with a variety of hybrid Buddhist, Hindu and animist religions coming from its neighboring states. The king sent for monks from Sri Lanka and established a pure form of Theravada as the state religion.

In Cambodia, the mid-fourteenth century Thai conquest replaced a hybrid of Mahayana and Shaivite Hinduism with the Thai form of Theravada. Within a very short time, Fa Ngum brought this Theravada tradition from Cambodia to Laos when he established his kingdom, replacing a similar syncretic religion.

Currently, in some western areas of the United States and Hawaii, people are mixing various forms of Buddhism with Hindu yoga, Sufi dancing, tai chi, macrobiotics, reiki healing of auras and anything else available in the American “spiritual supermarket.” This tendency is spreading now in several countries of western Europe.

This tendency is perhaps a manifestation of the “American melting pot” mentality. Many people in the United States feel that just as a country becomes mightier the more nationalities are melted down and incorporated into it, likewise their spiritual practice becomes more sophisticated the more diverse components they add to it. Just as they enjoy living in a cosmopolitan environment in which they can go to a restaurant or see a film from almost any country in the world, they like sometimes to do a little of one Buddhist practice and then later something of a completely different tradition. It gives them a sense of individual freedom and open space with almost unlimited choices like having a cable television with a satellite dish and the possibility of over a hundred channels from which to choose.

There is no harm if, after a meditation session, people share in some African drumming and dancing, and then everyone enjoys a native American sweat lodge or a California hot tub. Such activities can in fact be very helpful for Westerners to balance their mind and their body. The difficulty arises when they call this entire mixture “Western Buddhism.”

Just as in South and Southeast Asia, complicated amalgams of Buddhism, Hinduism and local religions did not have the energy and stability to endure in face of royally supported movements to instate a simpler and purer form of Buddhism, a similar phenomenon may happen in the West. When people skip each evening from one type of spiritual activity to another, they soon discover that aside from entertaining titillation, they never make any spiritual progress. In order to advance, it is necessary to follow a clear and simple spiritual path. Although it is certainly helpful for most Westerners to spend some time shopping around in the spiritual supermarket, there is no need to taste all fifty-one flavors in the ice cream shop before making a selection. Therefore, it is important to encourage spiritual shoppers finally to make a choice. There can be many staircases that lead to the top floor of a building, but someone can only arrive there by going up one.

The Manichaean religion was an amalgam of Zoroastrianism, Buddhism, Daoism and Christianity. In each country of Central Asia to which it spread, it emphasized one or the other depending on the local traditional belief. The emperors of Tang Dynasty China severely criticized it for being “imitation Buddhism,” pretending to be the pure Dharma when it was not. In the eighth century, they forbade Han Chinese from following this foreign religion, restricting it to the Sogdian merchants in their realm. In the ninth century, they banned it completely. Following the Chinese lead, the Tibetan king Tri Songdetsen also rejected it at the end of the eighth century when he ruled in favor of the Indian form of Buddhism as the official religion for his land.

Just as Manichaeism eventually did not survive anywhere, likewise a Western blend from the spiritual supermarket will have difficulty enduring as a lasting faith. If the blend is continually changing according to what beliefs are available in the market and then calling itself “Western Buddhism,” serious practitioners will inevitably reject it in favor of a simpler and purer form of the Dharma.