Buddhism and Transgression: The Appropriation of Buddhism in the Contemporary West

221 Pages·2009·3.33 MB·English

by  Adrian Konik

Buddhism and Transgression
Numen Book Series
Studies in the History of Religions
Series Editors
Steven Engler (Mount Royal College, Calgary, Canada)
Richard King (Vanderbilt University, Nashville, U.S.A.)
Kocku von Stuckrad (University of Amsterdam,
The Netherlands)
Gerard Wiegers (Radboud University Nijmegen,
The Netherlands)
Advisory Board
b. bocking (london, uk); f. diez de velasco
(tenerife, spain); i. s. gilhus (bergen, norway);
g. ter haar (the hague, the netherlands);
r. i. j. hackett (knoxville, tn, usa);
t. jensen (odense, denmark); m. joy (calgary, canada);
a. h. khan (toronto, canada); p. p. kumar (durban, south
africa); g. l. lease (santa cruz, ca, usa); a. tsukimoto
(tokyo, japan); a. t. wasim (yogyakarta, indonesia)
VOLUME 125
Buddhism and Transgression
The Appropriation of Buddhism
in the Contemporary West
By
Adrian Konik
LEIDEN • BOSTON
2009
Cover illustration: Pointing out possibilities in the flow (by Inge Konik, 2007).
This book is printed on acid-free paper.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication-Data
Konik, Adrian.
Buddhism and transgression : the appropriation of Buddhism in the
contemporary West / by Adrian Konik.
p. cm. — (Numen book series. Studies in the history of religions ; v. 125)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-90-04-17875-5 (hardback : alk. paper) 1. Buddhism—Western
countries. 2. Buddhist philosophy. I. Title. II. Series.
BQ704.K66 2009
294.309182’1—dc22
2009026762
ISSN 0169-8834
ISBN 978 90 04 17875 5
Copyright 2009 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands.
Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill, Hotei Publishing,
IDC Publishers, Martinus Nijhoff Publishers and VSP.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated,
stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic,
mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission
from the publisher.
Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use is granted by
Koninklijke Brill NV provided that the appropriate fees are paid directly to
The Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Suite 910,
Danvers, MA 01923, USA.
Fees are subject to change.
printed in the netherlands
To Inge, for everything

CONTENTS
Foreword ............................................................................................. ix
Preface .................................................................................................. xiii
Acknowledgments .............................................................................. xv
List of illustrations ............................................................................. xxiii
List of abbreviations .......................................................................... xxv
Introduction ........................................................................................ 1
PART I
THE EMERGENCE OF DISCIPLINARY/BIO-POWER AND THE
ARISING OF DISCURSIVE TENSION IN WESTERN SOCIETY
Chapter One The problem of effective critique ......................... 19
Chapter Two Disciplinary/bio-power and rational
autonomy ........................................................................................ 29
Chapter Three Secularized/medicalized confession and the
problematization of rational autonomy ..................................... 41
PART II
A REAPPRAISAL OF WESTERN INTEREST IN TIBET
AND VAJRAYĀNA BUDDHISM
Chapter Four The blank canvas of Tibet .................................... 65
Chapter Five Lobsang Rampa’s The Third Eye:
The Autobiography of a Tibetan Lama ....................................... 79
Chapter Six John Blofeld’s The Wheel of Life:
The Autobiography of a Western Buddhist ................................. 95
Chapter Seven Anagarika Govinda’s autobiographical
The Way of the White Clouds ....................................................... 107
viii contents
PART III
ENGAGING WITH THE DISCURSIVE LIMITS OF
TRANSGRESSION
Chapter Eight The ‘technological mind,’ discourse analysis,
and the emergence of a new type of socially engaged
contemporary Western Buddhism .............................................. 123
Conclusion .......................................................................................... 167
Afterword ............................................................................................ 177
Bibliography ........................................................................................ 179
Index .................................................................................................... 185
FOREWORD
This rich, challenging book by Adrian Konik invites the reader to enter
reflectively into the process of the negotiation of religious meaning
across often vast geographical, historical, socio-political and cultural
divides. The point of entry of this book is an understanding of the dis-
crepancy between the primary locus of discontent addressed by early
Indian Buddhism, and the one addressed by contemporary Western
Buddhism: the former suffered from the anxiety of an interminable
series of rebirths; the latter, from the experience of being pressed into
and shaped by the mold of power relations and thought patterns domi-
nant in the West since the eighteenth century—as analyzed by Michel
Foucault. Since the fundamental problems underlying early Indian
Buddhism and contemporary Western Buddhism are not the same,
the validity of applying the set of solutions developed by the first to
the situation of the second becomes a question of great importance.
Simply putting an end to rebirth would not necessarily strike the con-
temporary Westerner as the ultimate answer, as it certainly was for early
Indian Buddhists. So, simplistic repetition, on the part of contemporary
Western Buddhists, of any of the forms of historical Eastern Buddhism,
or Hīnayāna (Theravāda) and Mahāyāna Buddhism, would amount to
ahistoric Buddhist fundamentalism—in the terminology of the author, to
mere nostalgia, Orientalism, and ornamentalism. The alternative would
be to engage in the difficult process of conscious, reflective mediation
and articulation. What would constitute the difference between a facile,
superficial and ineffectual mediation of meaning, on the one hand, and
a responsible, effectual one that is part of a larger intercultural dialogue,
on the other hand? Adrian Konik makes a marked contribution to this
field.
It is a delicate field of interlocking relationships which cannot be
easily disentangled. No doubt, according to the early Indian Buddhist
tradition, the Buddha’s great discovery, as condensed in his experience
of nirvana, involved his remembrance of his many former existences,
presupposing as fact the reality of a never-ending process of rebirth as
a source of deep anxiety, and an acceptance of the Buddha’s overcoming
of that fate as ultimate liberation. This was not an isolated item, but
embedded in a nexus of great complexity and reciprocally implied in