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| Wat Thai Buddhist Temple, Washington D.C. |
Thich Nhat Hanh has become an important, even inspiring religious figure in Europe and North America. He has published tens of books in English and has quite a "footprint" on the Web. As a representative of Asian Buddhism, thus, he casts quite a long shadow in the West and projects a positive image of his religious heritage that intrigues many "seekers" around the globe. That's good. It can leave, however, an unrealistic appraisal of Buddhism as a very human religion. Like all of the major religions, it is a mixed bag of things that inspire and depress, lift up and undermine. In a recent posting on the Huffington Post entitled, "Western Buddhism: The 50 Year Lessons," the American Buddhist writer, Lewis Richmond, reminds us that the last 50 years have taught Western Buddhists some hard lessons. He lists three: (1) enlightenment is not what Western Buddhists thought it was, and it is something that has to be lived rather than experienced; (2) meditation is not a cure-all, and in some situations it is not helpful at all; and (3) Buddhist books and teachings sometimes obscure the messy, brutal realities of humanity, including Buddhist humanity.
Thich Nhat Hanh's work tends to offer meditation and its resulting enlightenment as the cure for every ill, the way through every situation. He purposely introduces his readers to a quieter, gentler, and more focused world, but even when he refers to the messy world it seems distant rather than close. Thailand's most revered monk of the 20th century, Buddhadasa, devoted much of his energy and writings to reforming Thai Buddhism. He said outright that much of the religion as widely practiced had lost touch with true Buddhism and the teachings of the Buddha. This is not to say that Buddhism is somehow a "bad" religion but, rather, to remind us that it is a mark of the human condition that we find ways to corrupt even the best of things. We see this tendency clearly in the Christian faith, hence the motto of the Reformed tradition including Presbyterian churches that we are to be, "reformed and always reforming." Buddhism is no different. That's the point. And as we do best to read the work of monks such as Thich Nhat Hanh understanding that we still must weigh his wisdom and spiritual depth on the scale of reality, which is evidently the lesson Western Buddhism has been learning these last fifty years.
