Buddhism without Beliefs: A Contemporary Guide to Awakening

by Stephen Batchelor

Grounded in awareness of transiency, ambiguity, and contingency, such a person values lightness of touch, flexibility and adaptability, a sense of humor and adventure, appreciation of other viewpoints, a celebration of difference.

As the turmoil of consciousness subsides and we come to rest in a heightened clarity of attention, the natural beauty of the world is vividly enhanced. We marvel at the exquisite tracery of a leaf, the play of light against the bark of a tree, the reflections and ripples in a puddle of water, the deliquescent radiance of a human eye. Our appreciation of the arts is also enriched: a phrase of music, a line of poetry, a dancing figure, a penciled sketch, a clay vase may speak to us with unprecedented poignancy and depth.

ossify.

At the heart of Buddhism’s encounter with the contemporary world is the convergence of two visions of freedom. The Buddha’s freedom from craving and anguish is converging with the autonomous individual’s freedom to realize his or her capacity for personal and social fulfillment.

Instead of creatively realizing their freedoms, many choose the unreflective conformism dictated by television, indulgence in mass-consumerism, or numbing their feelings of alienation and anguish with drugs. In theory, freedom may be held in high regard; in practice it is experienced as a dizzying loss of meaning and direction.

Preservation of the known and tested is preferable to the agony of imagination, where we are forced to risk that hazardous leap into the dark.

CULTURE, ACCORDING TO the Chambers dictionary, is the “state of being cultivated.” What is to be cultivated, according to the Buddha, is a path of authentic vision, ideas, speech, action, forms of life, resolve, mindfulness, and focused awareness. Hence a culture of awakening is a state in which this path is being cultivated.

A culture of awakening simply cannot occur without being rooted in a coherent and vital sense of community, for a matrix of friendships is the very soil in which dharma practice is cultivated. How to create an authentic community, which provides a sound basis for the emergence of a culture while optimizing individual freedom, may be the single most important question facing those practicing the dharma today.