Why I'm not a Buddhist (even though I am)

Shakyamuni Buddha's Parinibbana, traditional khmer mural

Buddhism as it exists today is divided into two major branches: Theravada and Mahayana. Theravada in Pali means “doctrine of the elders.” This branch is practiced mainly in South Asia, being the majority religion in countries such as Sri Lanka, Thailand, Myanmar, Laos, and Cambodia. It is the official religion of Sri Lanka, Myanmar, and Cambodia, and has been the religion of the Thai monarchy since the 13th century. There are approximately 150 million practitioners of Theravada Buddhism in the world today. The largest branch of Buddhism, more well known and widespread around the world, is Mahayana Buddhism, which in Sanskrit means “great vehicle.” It is practiced in China, Korea, Japan, Vietnam — and, if we include Vajrayana Buddhism, which means “diamond vehicle” or “lightning,” as a subset of Mahayana, it is also practiced in Tibet, Bhutan, Mongolia, and the Russian republic of Kalmykia, the only predominantly Buddhist region in Europe. There are approximately 380 million practitioners of Mahayana Buddhism, according to Peter Harvey, a specialist in the religion.

Historically speaking, Buddhism began around the 5th century BC, at the same time as Jainism. Siddhartha Gautama, the Buddha, and Vardhamana, the Mahavira, were contemporaries, although Mahavira was born earlier, being 20 or 30 years older than the Buddha. Besides the name Siddhartha Gautama, the Buddha, which means the enlightened one, is also known as Shakyamuni, meaning “the sage of the Shakyas,” Shakya being the clan to which Siddhartha Gautama belonged to. In both Jainism and Buddhism, these figures are considered one among many enlightened beings who, after many lifetimes, managed to teach the Dharma, which in Sanskrit means the path, the universal law, moral law, but can also mean phenomenon in the everyday sense of the term. These two religions, Jainism and Buddhism, emerged within the Shramana movement, which in Sanskrit means “ascetics” or seekers, a movement that opposed the authority of the Vedas and the Brahmins, in what was not yet exactly Hinduism as we know it today.

None of the current branches of Buddhism originated in the time of Siddhartha Gautama, the founder of the religion, who lived in the 5th century BC in what is now Nepal and India. However, of all the forms still practiced, Theravada Buddhism is considered the oldest, having started around the 3rd century BC, while Mahayana Buddhism and its various traditions began to appear in the 1st century BC. It is interesting to note that, although Buddhism was the dominant religion in India from the 3rd century BC until around the 7th century, several issues, such as the convergence of Mahayana Buddhist schools with Hinduism, the increased popularity of devotional Hinduism from the 6th century onward, the development of the Hindu philosophy of Advaita Vedanta by Adi Shankara in the 8th century, and the Islamic invasions throughout the Middle Ages, caused Buddhism in general to cease being sponsored by Indian rulers and fall into complete disfavor in India by the 12th century.

Theravada Buddhism has a more economic cosmology and soteriology plan than Mahayana Buddhism. The Theravada canon, written in an archaic Indian language related to Sanskrit called Pali, is considerably smaller than the Mahayana canon, which, although based on Sanskrit, survived to modern times only in Chinese and Tibetan. Even so, the Pali canon is extensive, being about 10 times larger than the Christian Bible. The Mahayana canon, on the other hand, takes into account the Chinese version of the Pali canon and adds to this version the various Mahayana sutras, many of them enormous. In other words, Mahayana Buddhism expands the cosmology and salvation plan of Theravada Buddhism. Despite both branches having the scriptures I mentioned, it is important to note that Buddhism is not a religion based on written revelations; it is not a religion based on a sacred book. Buddhist scriptures serve as guides, not as infallible dogmas.

In Theravada Buddhism, the historical Buddha is the last Buddha of our era to teach the Dhamma, or the path to the end of the cycle of death and rebirth, called samsara. To this end, he taught the Four Noble Truths. The first is that life contains dukkha, which in Pali means suffering, discomfort, dissatisfaction. The second is that the cause of dukkha is tanha, i.e., the constant and insatiable desires, attachments, and thirsts of life. The third is that the removal of tanha leads to nirodha, i.e., the cessation or extinction of suffering. The fourth is that there is a magga, or path to the cessation of suffering, and this is the Noble Eightfold Path, a series of teachings of the Buddha that lead to the complete extinction and end of the cycle of death and rebirth. This extinction is called nibbana. Another essential teaching is the three marks of existence: anicca, the impermanence of everything; dukkha, suffering, which is linked to impermanence; and anatta, which means that there is no self, soul, or permanent essence in any of us, not even between one life and another.

Anatta is the negation of the existence of atta, which means “I” or “soul” in Pali. In other words, it's the same as saying “no-self” or “no-soul.” What is reborn between one life and another is a subtle mental stream that is constantly changing and affected by karmic conditions. Imagine a river: it's the same river, but the water is in constant flow, changing at every moment; there is never a single spot of water that encompasses the entire stream. It is this stream that is subject to the cycle of death and rebirth. Some Buddhists prefer to put it less assertively and say that the doctrine of anatta is a kind of via negativa: it only points to what we are not and remains silent about a true essence. For them, it's not that atta doesn't exist. It may exist, but we cannot speak of it, nor should we, because, whatever it may be, it is mutable, like everything else in the phenomenal world. The doctrine of anatta is fundamental in all branches of Buddhism and differentiates Buddhism from other Dharmic religions, such as Hinduism and Jainism, which teach that there is indeed an essence that migrates from one life to another and that must be liberated from the cycle through enlightenment. This liberation is called moksha in Sanskrit.

In the Dhammapada, a small part of the Suttas of the Pali canon (which has similar versions in the Chinese and Tibetan canons), the Buddha says the following in the chapter on old age:

Through many births
I have wandered on and on,

Searching for, but never finding,
The builder of this house.
To be born again and again is suffering.

House-builder, you are seen!
You will not build a house again!
All the rafters are broken,

The ridgepole destroyed;
The mind, gone to the Unconstructed,
Has reached the end of craving!

The Buddhist process of salvation typically takes countless lifetimes, and when it is finally achieved, the person becomes an arahant, which in Pali means “worthy one.” After death, the arahant attains the indescribable nibbana, never returning to samsara. For practitioners of Theravada Buddhism, the historical Buddha no longer exists in samsara. We cannot appeal to him, nor to any other previous Buddha, nor to any arahant. These beings have left their afflictions behind. The Buddha is not a god, nor does the figure of a creator god exist in Buddhism, regardless of whether it is Theravada or Mahayana. Samsara and nibbana have no discernible beginning. And since I will now talk about Mahayana Buddhism, it is good to point out how some important terms change from Pali to Sanskrit. For example, dhamma becomes dharma, arahant becomes arhat, atta becomes atman, anatta becomes anatman, anicca becomes anitya, kamma becomes karma and, most famously, nibbana becomes nirvana.

Mahayana Buddhism also teaches the Four Noble Truths and the Three Marks of Existence. However, while for Theravada Buddhism the goal is to follow the teachings of the historical Buddha to become arhats, for Mahayana Buddhism, this is only part of the story. According to this branch, wanting to become only an arhat is selfish and is part of what they call Sravakayana, or the vehicle of the hearers. Sravaka means “hearer” in Sanskrit. For Mahayana Buddhism, the correct path is to choose the Bodhisattvayana, or vehicle of the Bodhisattva, which means “enlightened being.” The historical Buddha, even in Theravada Buddhism, was a bodhisattva before becoming a Buddha. A Buddha is a fully enlightened being who goes beyond the arhat, because he is able to teach and help others escape samsara. All practitioners of Mahayana Buddhism vow to become bodhisattvas so that, in the distant future, they may become fully enlightened Buddhas and help other sentient beings in a complete way.

Within Mahayana cosmology, the most advanced bodhisattvas and Buddhas who have attained Nirvana are able to return to samsara to help sentient beings, either through emanations or incarnations. Nirvana, while signifying the extinction of ignorance, desires, and suffering, does not mean total and eternal separation from samsara. In Mahayana Buddhism, there is a whole series of bodhisattvas and celestial Buddhas present in reality. Almost all traditions of Chinese, Japanese, and Korean Buddhism, for example, are part of the vast Mahayana branch. And Vajrayana Buddhism, better known as Tibetan Buddhism, is a development of Mahayana Buddhism that possesses esoteric teachings passed down between gurus and their students.

But, being the skeptic that I am when it comes to supernatural and magical matters, as well as a critic of the power that religions have exerted and continue to exert in the world, what on earth do I admire so much about Buddhism, then? I find some philosophical concepts accurate, both from the Theravada and Mahayana branches. I agree with the concept of anatta or anatman, for example. I also agree with the concept of dependent origination, which is another facet of the concept of impermanence. Everything in the world of becoming is conditioned by something else, everything is impermanent, even what we consider to be our self. Another idea that I find interesting and that arose in Mahayana Buddhism is that of emptiness, or shunyata in Sanskrit. This idea is taught by the Madhyamaka school of philosophy, or the Middle Way, initiated by the monk Nagarjuna in the 2nd century.

The Madhyamaka school teaches that there are two truths, one conventional and one ultimate or absolute. The conventional truth is that of the world as we normally see it, of separate things, of samsara and nirvana, of me and you. The absolute truth is that of the emptiness of all phenomena. Everything is shunyata, everything is empty of intrinsic existence. Not even this emptiness has an essence; it too is empty. Everything depends on everything else, as in dependent origination, and beneath all this dependence there is only complete emptiness. Therefore, there is a non-duality between all phenomena of the empirical world, but not only that. Non-duality extends even between samsara and nirvana. Samsara is when we are in ignorance, living in the world of dependent origination; nirvana is when we awaken to the nature of emptiness and experience the unconditioned non-duality of all dharmas, the ultimate reality.

I also find interesting the Yogacara school, which emerged in the 4th century. It teaches that all phenomena are collective representations of our minds and that there is no ultimate separation between subject and object. For Yogacara, experience has three types of nature: imagined or conceptual, dependent, and perfect. Imagined or conceptual nature is that in which things are understood incorrectly, where there is a separation between subject and object. This is samsara. Dependent nature is that which is subject to the dependent origination of all dharmas or phenomena, where nothing exists independently and everything is caused by something. Perfect nature is the true nature of reality, which is beyond conceptualizations, beyond the dualities between subject and object, beyond causality, and definitions. It can only be experienced through the practice of meditation, when enlightenment is achieved.

I find all this complexity and diversity of Buddhism fascinating. But, above all, I admire the pessimism with which Buddhism in general views the world of becoming, which is the source of so much suffering, pain, and dissatisfaction — although most Buddhists will deny it, of course, because they don't want to associate their faith with such a sad view of existence. Well then. Having said all that, now I will explain why I am not a Buddhist, although, in general, I find the concept of anatta or anatman, the concept of dependent origination of all phenomena (except nirvana, which would be unconditioned), and the concept of the emptiness of everything in the phenomenal world to be correct.

Having oscillated between academic interest and belief for many years, I have never truly sided with belief. And I believe I never will. While Buddhism includes the notion of ehipassiko, which in Pali means something like “investigate for yourself,” I don't see truth in certain important Buddhist teachings. I don't believe in metaphysical realms like hells, heavens, hungry ghosts, nor do I believe in rebirth after death, nor in karma. In fact, regarding karma, while Buddhism doesn't preach that society should be divided into castes, it affirms that those who suffer in this life have accumulated negative karma previously and, in a way, have brought about their disadvantages by being born into it. This in itself doesn't refute the idea of ​​karma and reincarnation, but in my view it is morally grotesque — which perhaps serves as evidence for its truth, since the world is indeed grotesque and a source of almost infinite suffering.

Incidentally, regarding rebirth in worse situations, in the Pansu Suttas (or “discourses on dust”) of the Pali canon, the Buddha says that the vast majority of people who are human today will be reborn not in the heaven of the devas, nor as practitioners of the Noble Eightfold Path in human form, but rather either in the hell realm, or in the animal realm, or in the realm of hungry ghosts, from which it is absurdly difficult to escape, especially the animal realm. In Buddhism, humans are the most privileged forms to follow the path of salvation and attain nibbana. According to this interpretation, which is canonical, we have this chance and, if we fail, it will take us countless lifetimes to be reborn as humans, if we ever manage to be. Again, this does not refute karma and reincarnation, but it is quite depressing, in my opinion.

But I don't think it's up to me to refute beliefs like karma and reincarnation. I think those who make extraordinary assertions need to provide extraordinary proof, not those who doubt. If we're supposed to practice out of fear of being reborn as an animal or in hell, the practice becomes a Buddhist variant of Pascal's wager, nothing more. The truth is that the naturalistic explanation of the world of becoming is extraordinarily effective and leaves no room for a world dominated by magic and religious mythology, even though it may still leave room for metaphysics in the philosophical sense. From this, I see that rebirth exists only as a metaphor, nothing more. When we die, our individuality ends. If the will or any other kind of unconditioned and undifferentiated thing-in-itself continues to animate new living beings after we as individuals die, that doesn't mean our mental streams will be reborn. I, as a phenomenon that exists in a given time and place, did not exist before being generated and born, and I will cease to exist after I die.

Yes, I agree that the world of becoming is impermanent and the cause of what Buddhism calls dukkha. I also agree with anatman, as I've already said. I agree that our self is illusory, that it's nowhere to be found when we look for it, and I agree that there is no soul. But I agree more than Buddhism, at least more than Buddhism usually agrees. I don't think there is a self, nor anything close to it, not even a mental stream that survives death, which is how Buddhism explains the continuity between different lives without the existence of a stable soul. What exists is an illusion of identity, of course, but only that. It's an adaptive illusion that serves various species and helps them survive, nothing more. The good news for all of us is that, contrary to what Buddhism and Dharmic religions preach, after this brief moment we spend alive, the illusion of the self dies with our bodies. The flow stops; it doesn't migrate. It is not necessary to attain moksha or nirvana.

I see no reason to believe that anything within us, whether atman or anatman, endures into other lives after we die. I see nothing that leaps from one life to another, be it a metaphysical atman or a subtle and mutable anatman, which would also be metaphysical, since there is nothing empirical that leaves a body and recomposes itself in a developing fetus. This is merely a grand metaphor that actually means the following: if we generate others, they will be creatures deluded by their own idea of self and will suffer in the phenomenal world. This is the metaphor of rebirth or reincarnation. And it is not exclusive to Buddhism. It also exists in various branches of Hinduism and Jainism.

Seeing the difficulty in convincingly presenting concepts like anatman and shunyata also makes me perfectly understand how Adi Shankara managed to make the Advaita Vedanta school of Hinduism more popular than Buddhism in India. While Buddhist monks and sages debated amongst themselves what the doctrine of anatman truly meant, whether it was merely a via negativa to finding a true self that transcends physical and mental aggregates, or whether it truly meant that there is no essence at all, and yet this nothingness migrates between those who die and those who are born, while they argued about everything being empty and thus devoid of essence, even emptiness itself, Shankara and his followers made things clear: there is a single essence, a single undifferentiated and unconditioned atman behind the entire empirical world, the world of phenomena. This essence is Brahman, the ultimate reality. The empirical world of becoming is merely an illusion, behind the Veil of Maya we are all Brahman.

Advaita philosophy is very similar to Mahayana Buddhism, especially regarding the idea that the true nature of reality is non-dual. The world of becoming is samsara, a cycle of rebirth and death where we suffer, and we must achieve enlightenment for the cycle to end. In Mahayana Buddhism, nirvana is completely indescribable; it is neither total annihilation nor the true self. It is something that cannot be spoken of. In Hinduism, moksha is also indescribable, but we can equate it with the true self without any problem, without the need to lose ourselves forever in abstract concepts whose correct meaning even Buddhists cannot agree on among themselves. The undifferentiated and unconditioned is expressed in a much more direct and simple way not only in Advaita philosophy, which posits that all the multiplicity of the world is a complete illusion, but also in the Vishishtadvaita philosophy of Ramanuja, an 11th-century Hindu ascetic who posited that, although everything is Brahman as Shankara said, this everything actually exists through multiplicity.

None of this means it's impossible for me to become a Buddhist in practice, and not just philosophically, someday. The problem is that for that to happen, I would probably have to go through some kind of revelation. I don't have much willingness to force myself to believe in supernatural things, even though certain things appeal to my conscience, such as anatman, anitya, and shunyata, as well as the idea that the phenomenal world of pain and impermanence doesn't have an omnipotent and benevolent creator, as is the case with Abrahamic religions, something that makes them meaningless systems, except for some smaller branches considered heretical. Unfortunately, I can't get rid of a minimum of skepticism that prevents me from seeing reality in things like rebirth, celestial Buddhas, pure lands, among other things. In this respect, I am like Cioran, when he writes in the book The New Gods:

At­tracted though I am by Bud­dhism, or Catharism, or any sys­tem or dogma, I pre­serve a core of skep­ti­cism which noth­ing can ever pen­e­trate and to which I al­ways re­turn af­ter each of my en­thu­si­asms. Whether this skep­ti­cism is con­gen­i­tal or ac­quired, it seems to me no less of a cer­ti­tude, even a lib­er­a­tion, when ev­ery other form of sal­va­tion blurs or re­jects me.

by Fernando Olszewski