Confessions of a Buddhist atheist

Lakshmi comes home from work quite late these days…I reach home earlier, spend some time cooking, then surf around aimlessly on the computer… Facebook, the Hindu, the latest on Paramahamsa Nityananda and his growing coterie of film star companions…then, often I do a sit, and, by around 8pm, drop off to sleep with the Comedy Channel lulling me to sleep…

Given this schedule, it was only natural that Lakshmi was quite shocked/surprised to see me sitting up and quite chirpy at 9pm, yesterday…after having made sure that all was OK, she inquired as to what was the cause for this somewhat rare occurrence…

In previous scribblings I had made reference to Stephen Batchelor’s recent book, “Confession of a Buddhist Atheist”…I had ordered the book and it was there in the mailbox when I came home, and, I started reading it…by 9pm I had finished 145 of the book’s 240 pages getting up just once to attend to bio needs…

Now, I know this is not the sort of attention that I normally give to anything in life…so, why the difference ?

Stephen Batchelor, is a self confessed flower child of the ‘60s…that does not by itself make him worth missing ‘Corner Gas’…

After dropping out of school, and, trekking across Europe and Afghanistan, sampling different psyhotropic drug combinations, he lands in Dharmsala where, around the time I was graduating from IIMA, he was getting initiated into Tibetan Buddhism. Circa this period, the Dalai Lama had ‘authorized’ SN Goenka to conduct a Vipassana course for monks of his order…very interestingly, I noted that Stephen Batchelor was one of the monks who ‘sat’ this course.

From Dharmsala, Stephen goes to Switzerland to work with one of the seniormost abbots of the tradition, and, it is there that I can see the origins of his earlier book, ‘Buddhism without Beliefs…’ The questioning starts within…what are the myths, what is the reality ? And from there he moves to becoming a Zen student in South Korea…while his Vajrayana preceptor is sorry to see him leave the Vajrayana practice, he does nothing to stop him…

The first person Stephen meets as he steps off the plane on landing in South Korea, is the French Buddhist nun who will be subsequently become his wife…but before that very human relationship matures into a partnership there is a very interesting introduction to the practice of South Korean Zen…and a few references to his growing involvement with the French Buddhist nun…,he also talks of how the lack of a heterosexual companionship was making him attracted to men (no problem with that, at least in Canada, not sure in other places)…

But, the real action in the book for me starts after he and the French nun (I forget her monastic name, she is now his wife, Martine) leave the monastery after the death of the preceptor…

With the resulting dissolution following the preceptor’s death, Stephen talks of how he was faced with the task of making a living…the Sangha had provided him the wherewithal for life since the age of eighteen…now, with his and Martine’s decision to make it into the world of samsara the task of making a living was quite daunting…while both of them were steeped in the knowledge of the Buddhist texts, they had no formal qualifications, and, that made it so much more difficult for them to find a job…His mother’s fears when he dropped out of school seemed to be coming true…till the end, like a lot of mothers, she kept gently questioning his career choice, or lack thereof, from a practical point of view…

Stephen’s search to understand the historical Buddha is the cornerstone of the book…an extension of the Zen question he was taught to ponder over ‘What is this ? Where did it come from ?’…he makes references to Marxist interpretations of the Buddha’s life, and, finally brings out the historical Buddha in as realistic a light as possible…

The picture he paints of Siddhatha Gotama is of a very human being, much involved in the day to day hustle and bustle of politics and life…

Based on his research he has come to the conclusion that the four sightings (the sick person, the dead body, the old person and the hermit) which we have all heard of as the cause for Siddhatha Gotama’s renunciation do not have any historical basis…the texts, according to Batchelor, say that these sightings happened to another Buddha, Vipassi, by name…and have been incorporated into Siddhatha Gotama’s life as one more of the embellishing myths…

Batchelor’s interpretation of the Great Renunciation is more around ennui and deep angst experienced by a very sensitive young man…

I have reached the stage in the book where Batchelor is talking of the First Mahasangha after the Buddha’s death…Ananda, the Buddha’s companion and principal batman, had a photographic memory of everything the Buddha had said…however, there was much debate over whether he should join the Mahasangha…I have heard Goenkaji give his interpretation of this incident…Batchelor talks of it, very differently, in the context of the power politics between the Buddha’s principal disciples, on his death…

The book grips me like very few books have in the recent past…however, as I read Stephen Batchelor’s interpretation of the Buddha’s life, and, compare it with what I have heard from Goenkaji and read from Thich Nhat Hahn, a story attributed to the Buddha and several other teachers comes to my mind…

A group of blind men one day came across an elephant and started describing it. One of them who was near the tail said the elephant was like a rope, another who was near the legs said that it was like a pillar, a third who was near the trunk said it was like a water spout, a fourth who was near the ear said it was like a fan…

experiencing the Truth is somewhat similar…

in our current shape and form it will always be a part, not the Whole…for the Whole we have to go beyond the mind and its limitations…till then, everything is entertainment…