Buddhism in the Modern World

by Kenneth J. Saunders

"From such far distances the echo of his words returns that we cannot but rank him amongst the greatest heroes of history," says the eminent Belgian scholar de la Vallée Poussin, and from him, as from Gautama, we shall all do well to learn the spirit of tolerance and courtesy. Yet both of them speak out bluntly and shrewdly enough at times. It is recorded that when the great teacher met men whose doctrines were morally dangerous or intellectually insincere, he harried them remorselessly till "the sweat poured from them" and they cried, "As well might one meet an infuriated bull or dangerous snake as the ascetic Gautama!" Of those whose teachings were sincere and earnest he was wonderfully tolerant, even advising a soldier disciple to give alms to them and their followers, no less than to the Buddhist monks.

In this spirit the Belgian scholar, probably the greatest living authority upon Buddhism as a whole, is lovingly tolerant towards Buddhism and honest Buddhists, but of Neo-Buddhism he says: "It is at once frivolous and detestable—dangerous, perhaps, for very feeble intellects." Even so, a vast Neo-Buddhist Church is not impossible!

European and American Buddhists, then, fall into these two classes: those who are honest and sincere students of Buddhism and followers of Gautama, and those of whom the most charitable thing that can be said is that they lead astray "foolish women," and other sentimentalists. To illustrate the methods of these two schools, who are unfortunately at present often working in an unnatural alliance, let me describe two recent experiences.

On Easter Day I went from the simple and exquisite beauty of our Communion Service, in which the glamour of the Resurrection is ever being renewed, to a Buddhist church within a stone's throw, here in the heart of San Francisco. There, as in innumerable other centres of Buddhist life, the birth of Gautama was being celebrated; and I could unhesitatingly join in paying reverence to the memory of the great Indian teacher. But it was certainly amazing and a little staggering to find "Buddhist High Mass" being performed, the celebrant calling himself a bishop and ordaining on his own initiative abbots and abbesses.[21] Three altar candles representing the Buddha, the Law, and the Order being lighted, the "bishop," preceded by seven or eight American and British monks in yellow robes, and by the Abbess, known as Mahadevi, ascended to the platform, which contains a beautiful Japanese shrine of the Hongwanji sect. Several monks from Japan, to my surprise, assisted in the strange service that followed, which began with the invocation of Amida Buddha, and went on in an astonishing hotch-potch of the cults of the primitive and the later Buddhism derived indiscriminately from Ceylon, Tibet, and Japan.

Of this strange service, which the "bishop" claims to have modelled on that in use in the Dalai Lama's palace at Lhassa, it must suffice to say that if the Tibetan Mantras were as inaccurately rendered as were the five precepts in Pāli which are the Buddhist pentalogue, then the general impression of Buddhism given was as misleading as it is possible to conceive. The service included a processional hymn, music by an organist announced as "late of the Golden Temple Shway Dagon in Burma, and of St. Paul's Cathedral, London," an "Epistle" read by an American Buddhist, a "gospel of the day," read by the Abbess, several addresses by Japanese and Western Buddhists, and a sermon by the "bishop," who claims to be ninety-five years old, to be the son of a Persian prince, to have spent sixteen years at the feet of the late Dalai Lama in Tibet, to have numerous degrees in arts, medicine, science, and philosophy from Oxford, London, Paris, and Heidelberg, and to have been seventy-five years a monk of the yellow robe. His costume was as amazingly mixed as his liturgy, consisting of a Hindu turban, a yellow Buddhist overmantle, a scarlet robe with cincture and maniple of purple, and a rosary terminating in the Swastika, with which sign he blessed the people at the end of the service, saying: "May the face of the Truth shine upon you, and the divine Wisdom of the Buddhas permeate you, and remain with you now and throughout eternity. So mote it be."

In his sermon he claimed to have founded no less than eighty missions in the past ten years in California, and said some shrewd things in criticism of the Christian Church, of which I am persuaded he was himself once a member. For the rest it was a practical discourse enough; he advised his followers, if they would live as long as he (and he announced that he would still be going strong fifty years hence), they must change their wrinkles into dimples, and learn the secret of a serene mind. He gave notice that in the evening there would be a banquet and a dance, in which he would join, if widows and maidens pressed him, and immediately after the service he saluted them all "with a holy kiss," which they seemed to enjoy as much as he. There is something really attractive about this jovial monk, and he has the energy, the ubiquity and the perseverance of another "Persian prince" who is equally opposed to Christianity!

The "bishop's" disciples are fairly numerous, though one of his colleagues expressed the conviction, on the authority of an English professor, that the same wonderful teachings would draw thousands to hear them in London, instead of scores in San Francisco. Be that as it may, they are faithful disciples; attracted very largely by the fact that he is rather expounding spiritualism, telling of the wonderful Mahatmas of Tibet, and luring them with the glamour of Eastern mysticism than teaching Buddhism. When I chuckled at some of his shrewd sallies, an elegantly dressed woman next to me said, "Hush! Hush! You are not an initiate, you do not understand; all that he says has a profound, inner meaning which only we who are initiated can comprehend." To which I could not resist the reply: "I may not be initiated into this business, but I know that this is not Buddhism any more than that the organist who is playing those penny-whistle tunes on the harmonium ever played them on the Shway Dagon, where music is not allowed, or any more than the old sportsman who is speaking is a bishop."

It is not by such means that Buddhism can be revived.

But there are others! Some years ago I had a delightful talk with one of them in the shadow of the great pagoda from which our organist did not come. He was a Scot, a scholar and scrupulously honest, and his name is already widely known as the translator of both German and Pāli works. Quite frankly he told me why he had taken the yellow robe, and how, having lost his faith in Christianity, he found in the Buddhist books something which saved his reason and probably his life: then, turning to me, he said: "How glad you fellows would be if you could get rid of the Old Testament."

Another friend of mine, an Englishman, was formerly trained as a Roman Catholic priest, and is now a Buddhist missionary in California, having been ordained in Japan, and having, with an American scholar, now a professor in London, been responsible for the production of an admirable and scholarly periodical, The Mahayanist. Its object is to impart an accurate knowledge of the Buddhism of China and Japan, and to investigate its history, doctrines, and present conditions in an unbiased and scholarly way.