Perennialist maze

 

Credit: Jiulongtang

Richard K Payne is a scholar of Buddhism based in Berkeley, CA. In 2009, he edited a volume in honor of the recently deceased Roger Corless, another scholar of Buddhism. The book, titled "Path of No Path: Contemporary Studies in Pure Land Buddhism Honoring Roger Corless", contains one contribution freely available at the website "Academia.edu". It´s Payne´s very own contribution "How not to talk about the Pure Land", the Berkeley Buddhologist takes on none other than Huston Smith, author of the highly acclaimed "World´s Religions", but otherwise most known as a prominent perennialist and Traditionalist. And of course, psychedelic trip bro to Aldous Huxley! (Smith passed away a few years ago.) 

Payne clearly doesn´t like Huston Smith, although he admits that he is (was) a very charismatic personality. In fact, Payne frequently accuses Smith of acting in bad faith, only to qualify this ad hominem in a weird footnote: "We are using the term here as described by Jean-Paul Sartre—willfully re-maining ignorant of one’s own choices, that is, treating oneself as unfree (a being-in-itself), in order to avoid the responsibility of free choice (a being-for-itself)." That may be what "bad faith" means at some obscure theological union in the Bay Area, but everyone else would read it differently. And as one of my commentators would no doubt put it: "Who´s we, sucker?".

That being said, Payne does score a number of points against Huston Smith. Ironically, it seems that Smith was sometimes describing Buddhism from a "modernist" perspective, despite his Traditionalism. While the modernist angle is presumably from Smith´s pre-Traditionalist days, he never revised the bulk of his public writings on Buddhism. The Buddhism he describes is really a 19th and 20th century "Protestant Buddhism", often a modernized version of Zen. Another problem is Smith´s perennialism, which is no longer a tenable position in religious studies. Religions really are different from each other in very fundamental ways, and seemingly universal concepts such as "faith" turn out to have subtle or not-so-subtle shades of meaning depending on cultural context. Smith makes it even harder for himself by arguing that "traditional" religions are similar both exoterically and esoterically, while a more clever perennialist would presumably hold that the similarities are esoteric only (perhaps impersonal mysticism). The Traditionalist aspect isn´t taken seriously by Payne at all. The notoriously grumpy Traditionalists won´t like this article! To Payne, Traditionalism is simply warmed over Romanticism and/or sheer rhetoric, and its "soft" version a form of entryism into milieux where the hard variety would be unpalatable.

To Payne, Smith wants to impose his own theology (Payne´s term) on all (or perhaps most) religions, a kind of quasi-Christian Kabbalistic Neoplatonism. On Payne´s interpretation, this has little to do with Pure Land Buddhism, or indeed any Buddhism. There is no hidden reality in Buddhism: the Buddha actually saw reality as it is. Buddhism isn´t about "salvation" (i.e. salvation from sin through a divinely appointed savior). The similarities between Pure Land Buddhism and Christianity (really Protestantism) are grossly overstated, such as the claim that Amida is a "savior" bestowing "grace" on those who have "faith" (although he admits that the problem is complex and different takes on it exists). Other religions don´t fit Smith´s perennialist criteria either. Taoism, at least on some interpretations, doesn´t make a clear distinction between "spirit" and "matter". Certain forms of Hinduism don´t seem to be emanationist. And many religions emphatically don´t have a "happy ending". What about Sheol and Ragnarök?

Payne´s own view of Buddhism is only indirectly visible in the article, but I was struck that he sometimes sounds like a Buddhist modernist himself. He implies that Buddhism isn´t a religion, that its mysticism is "pure psychology", and that it´s perfectly compatible with science. Nor does it have a metaphysic. Sounds familiar? He also attacks the anti-modernist and hierarchic perspectives of Traditionalism, moreover accusing it of being crypto-theocratic. It´s also intriguing to note that Corless, whom the author knew personally, practiced three religions simultaneously: Catholicism, Shin Buddhism (a form of Pure Land Buddhism) and Nichiren Buddhism. This strikes me as strange, since - as far as I know - these three religions are exclusivist. Corless also admitted that they were different on a deep level. Since Huston Smith believed that Reality is ultimately paradoxical, he might - ironically enough - had paid some compliments to Payne´s friend...

With that, I end these reflections.