1 — Radical Buddhism

1 Radical Buddhism About fifty meters south of Ōhiradai station in the mountainous, rural area of Hakone (Japan) there is a small and inconspicuous temple named Rinsenji 林泉寺. The temple belongs to the Sōtō sect of Zen Buddhism and was established in 1559. It is not a particularly interesting or noteworthy temple except for one brief episode in its history. In May 1909 the police arrested Rinsenji’s chief priest, Uchiyama Gudō 内山愚童, and searched the temple. They found an illegal printing press under the main altar, and they also claimed to have found dynamite and fuses. The printing press was used by Uchiyama to print socialist and anarchist pamphlets as well as some of his own radical writings in which he argued for land reform, for anarcho-communist revolution, against fatalistic belief in karma (i.e., the belief that one’s current misery is due to bad karma resulting from bad deeds in previous lives), and against the emperor.1 The latter was used as “evidence” for an accusation of his involvement in a plot to kill the emperor, the so-called High Treason Incident 幸徳 事件. After a show trial that was “mostly based on circumstantial evidence and orchestrated by the Japanese government to get rid of the radical left,”2 he and several others were sentenced to death. He was executed on January 24, 1911. Uchiyama is one of the best known so-called “radical Buddhists,” although he never used that term himself. The notion of radical Buddhism is a fairly recent academic invention for the purpose of categorizing and characterizing a rather loose collection of trends and movements in mostly early twentieth century Buddhism.3 James Mark Shields and Patrice Ladwig, probably the foremost academic experts on the subject, define the notion of “radical” in “radical Buddhism” as a “position that is (1) politically engaged; and (2) in opposition to the hegemonic socio-political and/ or economic ideology (or ideologies) of a given period,” and a “radical Buddhist” as “anyone engaged in the explicit or implicit use of Buddhist doctrines or principles to foment resistance to the state and/or the socio-political and/or economic status 1 2 3 See the section “Uchiyama Gudō and Early Buddhist Socialism” in chapter 3 for a brief discussion of Uchiyama’s thought. Fabio Rambelli, Zen Anarchism: The Egalitarian Dharma of Uchiyama Gudō (Berkeley: Institute of Buddhist Studies and BDK America, 2013), 5. The phrase “radical Buddhism” was occasionally used before, but the here relevant term was coined by James Mark Shields in a conference paper that was published in 2012. James Mark Shields, “Radical Buddhism, Then and Now: Prospects of a Paradox,” Silva Iaponicarum 日林 23/24/25/26 (2012): 15–34. 22 a buddha land in this world quo.”4 Most radical Buddhists were not just radical in this sociopolitical sense, however, but also in their strive to reform or modernize Buddhism. For example, two decades after Uchiyama’s death, the Youth League for New Buddhism 新興仏教青 年同盟 accepted a mission statement that pledged both “to reform [the capitalist economic system] and realize the society of the future” and “to promote a Buddhism appropriate to the new age.”5 Furthermore, this two-fold aim of reforming both society and Buddhism is by no means unique to radical Buddhism. Since the 1880s there have been a great number of Buddhist monks and laymen in various countries arguing for some kind of Buddhism that is rationalized or modernized on the one hand, and activist or socially engaged on the other. Several labels have been introduced to group together thinkers and movements expressing varieties hereof: Buddhist modernism (or modernist Buddhism),6 engaged Buddhism,7 secular Buddhism,8 Protestant Buddhism,9 and so forth. There are, of course, significant differences between the Buddhisms these labels cover — especially in the extents of their engagement or activism — but they are all rooted in a desire “to promote a Buddhism appropriate to the new age.” They all strive (or strove) to somehow make Buddhism more relevant for and in modern society, or in other words, to modernize Buddhism or key aspects thereof. Modernization is often associated with secularization, and proposed modernizations of Buddhism generally involve aspects of secularization. This is most obvious in case of secular Buddhism, which flat-out rejects any supernatural or mythical element in Buddhism, but most Buddhist modernists, engaged Buddhists, radical Buddhists, and so forth, also rejected or rethought supernatural elements in traditional Buddhism and argued for more naturalist interpretations. The aforementioned rejection of fatalistic belief in karma by Uchiyama may be seen as an example hereof. Secularity Until a few decades ago, the ruling paradigm in the sociology of religion was the secularization thesis, the idea that modern societies are becoming increasingly secular. Reality is a bit more complex, however, and there is a mountain of historical evidence against this thesis, or at least against some varieties thereof.10 The idea of 4 Patrice Ladwig and James Mark Shields, “Introduction,” Politics, Religion & Ideology 15, no. 2 (2014): 187–204, at 16. 5 Kashiwahara Yūsen 柏原祐泉,『日本仏教史 現代』(Tokyo: Yoshikawa Kōbunkan 古川弘文館, 1990), 214. See the section “Seno’o Girō and the Youth League” in chapter 3 for the full three-point mission statement. 6 Usually Heinz Bechert is credited with coining the term “Buddhist modernism” and starting the academic study thereof. See Heinz Bechert, Buddhismus, Staat und Gesellschaft in den Ländern des Theravāda-Buddhismus: Grundlagen. Ceylon (Berlin: Metzer, 1966). 7 Thích Nhất Hạnh is usually credited with coining the term “engaged Buddhism.” See the section “Vietnam — Thích Nhất Hạnh’s Engaged Buddhism” in chapter 3. 8 I am not sure who used the (English) term “secular Buddhism” first, but by far the best known advocate of the notion is Stephen Batchelor. See the section “Secular Buddhism” in chapter 3. 9 The term “Protestant Buddhism” was coined in Gananath Obeyesekere, “Religious Symbolism and Political Change in Ceylon,” Modern Ceylon Studies 1 (1970): 43–63. See also Richard Gombrich and Gananath Obeyesekere, Buddhism Transformed: Religious Change in Sri Lanka (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1988). 10 For a review of the historical evidence against the secularization thesis, see J.C.D. Clark, “Secularization and Modernization: The Failure of a ‘Grand Narrative’,” The Historical Journal 55, no. 1 (2012): 161–94. radical buddhism a process of secularization presupposes that societies or ideas can be more or less secular, or, in other words, that there are gradations in secularity, and regardless of whether there are discernible historical trends with regards to secularity, the notion of gradations of secularity is helpful to get a better grip on radical Buddhism and adjacent phenomena. On such a scale of secularity, there is a more radical secular end, a more traditional non-secular end, and much in between. There is no such single scale, however. In Public Religions in the Modern World, José Casanova argues that what usually passes for a single theory of secularization is actually made up of three very different, uneven and unintegrated propositions: secularization as differentiation of the secular spheres from religious institutions and norms, secularization as decline of religious beliefs and practices, and secularization as marginalization of religion to a privatized sphere.11 Casanova’s three kinds of secularization presuppose three kinds of secularity: (1) secularity as the extent of separation between religious and non-religious institutions; (2) secularity as a measure of the pervasiveness and influence of religious beliefs and practices; and (3) secularity as the extent to which religion has been forced out of the public sphere and into the private sphere. But even these might not be singular dimensions. Most importantly, the second seems to cover several different — albeit probably related — aspects of secularity including (2a) the extent to which people adhere to traditional religious beliefs and practices; (2b) the importance of religious beliefs and practices (either traditional or new) to people; and (2c) the extent to which religious beliefs and practices are reinterpreted or reformed to conform to secular, non-religious beliefs and practices. Radical, modernist, and secular Buddhism move away from the traditional nonsecular end of the spectrum in this last sense (i.e., 2c), but that is not the only dimension of secularity that matters here. Jessica Main and Rongdao Lai have pointed out that one of the central features of engaged Buddhism is “the rejection of the historical and ideological aspects of secularization.”12 In other words, engaged Buddhism is anti-secular in the third sense distinguished above (i.e., 3): it does not accept marginalization to the private sphere, but sees an explicit public, social, or political role for Buddhism. And radical Buddhists who argue for revolution, like Uchiyama, are even more radically anti-secular in this sense. Hence, radical Buddhism is radically secular in one sense of secularity, and radically anti-secular in another. Modernist, radical, secular, and related Buddhisms can be positioned in a twodimensional space defined by two of the aspects of secularity distinguished above: the extent to which religious beliefs and practices are reinterpreted or reformed to conform to secular, science-based beliefs and practices, and the extent to which religion is forced into the private sphere and denied a public, social, or political role. The first of these aspects or dimensions identifies secularity with naturalism; the second identifies it with privatization. On both dimensions, the two extremes of radical secularity and radical anti-secularity are idealizations. Few if any thinkers or currents exemplify these end points 11 José Casanova, Public Religions in the Modern World (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994), 211. 12 Jessica Main and Rongdao Lai, “Introduction: Reformulating ‘Socially Engaged Buddhism’ as an Analytical Category,” The Eastern Buddhist 44, no. 2 (2013): 1–34, at 4. Italics in original. 23 24 a buddha land in this world on the two scales, although some may have gotten quite close. In between there is a whole spectrum of intermediate positions. The opposite of “radical” as an adjective is “moderate,” but in case of a spectrum only positions roughly in the middle can be considered moderate. Furthermore, the moderate category on either dimension does not just include relatively well-developed positions that are equally distant from both radical extremes, but also a kind of neutrality resulting either from a quietist unwillingness to develop a more definite position (because the issue is not considered important, for example) or from incapability to develop a clear position due to a lack of access to necessary information. Uchiyama should probably be classified as a moderate on the secularity-as-naturalism dimension in this sense because he lacked the necessary background in science and philosophy, including Buddhist philosophy, to develop a more rigorous position in this respect. I suppose that some people might be inclined to choose moderation over the radical extremes on the basis of an assumption that the middle ground is always better. This is a form of fallacious reasoning called the “argument to moderation” or “middle ground fallacy” that might be especially attractive to some Buddhists, given that Buddhism preaches “the Middle Way.”13 However, the Buddha’s Middle Way is one between two very specific extremes,14 and that the middle way is the right way in some specific case(s) does not imply that one should always opt for the middle way. Sometimes one of the extremes is right. Secularity as Naturalism Radical secularity-as-naturalism implies an acceptance of science as supreme authority and a rejection of supernatural explanations. The anti-secular end on this dimension, on the other hand, accepts religious tradition or scripture as supreme authority and accepts supernatural explanations. In case of Buddhism, the secular end’s rigorous naturalism leads to a rejection of belief in karma and reincarnation. This implies the necessity of reinterpretation of at least some texts and doctrines or the bracketing of problematic doctrines, and consequently, the secular end is radically reformist. The anti-secular end, in contrast, is staunchly traditionalist. Radical secularity-as-naturalism conflicts with the identification of Buddhism as a religion, or at least appears to do so, but not with its identification as philosophy, provided that philosophy is assumed to be part of science. The latter is itself not an uncontroversial claim, however. The question how philosophy relates to the sciences is closely related to the question of how to define philosophy and its subject matter, which is one of the core questions of the branch of philosophy called “metaphilosophy.”15 Many philosophers saw and see their discipline as something inherently different from the sciences, but not always for the same reasons. The most important but not only exception is W.V.O. Quine. For Quine, philosophy and science are continuous, and neither deals in absolute certainties. Rather, any scientific idea, and thus any philosophical idea, is open for revision. 13 Ichikawa Hakugen has suggested that this is one of the reasons why radical philosophies such as socialism and anarchism are relatively rare among Buddhists. Ichikawa Hakugen 市川白弦,『仏教 者の戦争責任』(Tokyo: Shunshūsha 春秋社, 1970). 14 Namely, asceticism and hedonism. Dhammacakkappavattana Sutta (SN 56.11). See the section “The Middle Way” in chapter 5. 15 See, for example, Søren Overgaard, Paul Gilbert, and Stephen Burwood, An Introduction to Metaphilosophy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013), chapter 2. radical buddhism Quine’s naturalism is rooted in pragmatism, a philosophical movement that sprung up in nineteenth-century America and that advocated giving up the traditional quest for absolute certainty and to settle for the more modest goal of finding what works. On the basis of the contrast underlying this suggestion, we can sketch a picture showing how science, religion, and philosophy relate to each other. Traditionally, philosophy has been a quest for certainty,16 while religion claimed to have already found certainty. Science, on the other hand, does not aim for certainty, but for prediction and explanation (i.e., for what works), and any scientific explanation is only provisional (i.e., open for revision if contrary evidence is found). Radical secularity-as-naturalism, then, aiming to make Buddhism “scientific” or naturalist, first collapses religion into philosophy by giving up on the pretense that certainty has already been found,17 and then collapses philosophy into science by giving up the quest for certainty altogether. In this sense, radical secularity-as-naturalism is, or should be, pragmatist or Quinean naturalist, or something very similar. Moderate positions on this dimension often seem to be motivated by a conscious or unconscious desire to give some key beliefs protected status (or conversely, to only reform or discard some unwelcome beliefs). In such cases, naturalism is only accepted halfheartedly or partially; that is, as long as scientific findings do not threaten core beliefs they are accepted, and some peripheral beliefs may even be revised in light of contrary scientific evidence, but core beliefs are effectively immune from revision. That effective immunity may be the result of a lack of awareness or understanding of that contrary evidence, of ignoring that evidence, of trying to explain it away, of a pseudo-skeptical appeal to uncertainty, or of some combination of these. None of these options are available to an austere naturalist, but the appeal-to-uncertainty strategy is especially dubious. An example thereof would be to hold on to a belief in an immortal soul because science has not with absolute certainty proven that there are no souls. The latter is true for the obvious reason that science never proves anything with absolute certainty — that just is not how science works. But that is no reason to accept the opposite. Rather, science — and thus naturalism — always provisionally accepts the most well-supported and most coherent theory or explanation. There is no empirical evidence for souls,18 the notion of a soul conflicts with basic laws of physics,19 and the only motivation for a belief in souls appears to be a human craving for immortality.20 That is more than sufficient ground to reject the notion. It is true that science can be wrong (and it is always science itself that shows when 16 The quest for certainty does not just characterize Western philosophy, but Chinese and Indian philosophy as well. For example, classical Chinese philosophy aimed to find the constant or unchanging dao 常道, and much of Indian philosophy has been concerned with the nature of ultimate truth. In all three traditions the quest for certainty at some point developed into its counterpart, the critical realization of the certain failure of that quest (in skepticism, Daoism, and Mādhyamaka), therein finding some kind of certainty after all. 17 This is only applicable to religious explanation, of course, but religion also serves other functions, and radical secularity-as-naturalism may not necessarily have to give up those. See the section “Between Science and Religion” in chapter 6. 18 Contrary to popular belief, near-death experiences are not evidence of an afterlife or an immortal soul but are better explained as hallucinations of an oxygen-deprived brain. Dean Mobbs and Caroline Watt, “There Is Nothing Paranormal about Near-Death Experiences: How Neuroscience Can Explain Seeing Bright Lights, Meeting the Dead, or Being Convinced You Are One of Them,” Trends in Cognitive Sciences 15, no. 10 (2011): 447–49. See also the first part of chapter 2 in Mark Johnston, Surviving Death (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2010). 19 See the section “Physicalism” in chapter 4. 20 Idem, but see also section “Between Science and Religion” in chapter 6. 25 26 a buddha land in this world it is wrong!), but the scientific approach is to provisionally accept the best scientific theory until it is proven wrong, not to reject some scientific theory that does not fit with one’s worldview because it might eventually be proven wrong. That’s not naturalism — that’s cherry-picking. Such cherry-picking, when it occurs, rarely seems to be intentional, however. Humans have a psychological need to protect the beliefs that are most central to their worldview,21 and that need trumps almost everything else. For this reason, a consistent and austere secularity-as-naturalism may not really be humanly possible. We are all biased, and we all protect the beliefs we hold dearest. Probably the most prominent example of this kind of unintentional cherry-picking is the fourteenth Dalai Lama, who has shown great interest in the dialogue between Buddhism and science and who has written that “if science proves some belief of Buddhism wrong, then Buddhism will have to change,”22 but who has also shown to be unwilling or unable to give up beliefs in mind–body dualism and reincarnation.23 The latter is quite understandable given the centrality of those beliefs in his belief system, but it implies that he does not genuinely embrace science, or naturalism, and thus that he should be classified as moderate on the secularity-as-naturalism dimension.24 The Sociopolitical Dimension: Secularity as Privatization The secularity-as-privatization dimension concerns the public, social, or political roles of Buddhism (or religion in general). Radical secularity in this sense is the position that religion belongs in the private sphere exclusively. Buddhists who take up a position close to this extreme argue that suffering or dukkha in Buddhism is just psychological and thus private and that other kinds of suffering (such as poverty) have nothing to do with dukkha and are, therefore, no concern for Buddhism. They may still be a concern for Buddhists, but that concern is not motivated by Buddhism itself.25 Moving away from radical secularity in this sense we find a range of positions that, to an increasing extent, stress the importance of addressing other kinds of suffering, often called “material suffering” or “worldly suffering,” and that, to a decreasing extent, accept the sociopolitical and economic status quo. The anti-secular extreme roundly rejects the status quo and aims for a complete overhaul of society. In other words, radical anti-secularity in this sense is revolutionary. Moderate positions closer to the secular end largely accept the status quo and focus their attention on charity; moderate positions closer to the anti-secular end are less accepting of the status quo and aim for more or less radical reform. Some moderate positions may seem more radical than they really are, although this is probably more obvious in the case of Christianity than that of Buddhism. The Christian right, for example, may seem radically anti-secular in their aims to 21 See the section “Between Science and Religion” in chapter 6. 22 Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama, “Our Faith in Science,” The New York Times, November 12, 2005, https://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/12/opinion/our-faith-in-science.html. See also Tenzin Gyatso, The Universe in a Single Atom (New York: Morgan Road, 2005), 3. 23 Tenzin Gyatso, The Universe in a Single Atom. Tenzin Gyatso, “Reincarnation,” His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama of Tibet, 2011, http://www.dalailama.com/biography/reincarnation. 24 For a more extensive discussion of the Dalai Lama’s views on science and society, see the section “Tibet — Gendun Chopel and the 14th Dalai Lama” in chapter 3. 25 About dukkha and the concept of suffering in Buddhism, see the section “Suffering” in chapter 5. radical buddhism ban abortion and euthanasia and to implement various other religiously motivated policies. However, they accept the sociopolitical and economic status quo and do not aim to create a society based on the values expressed in, for example, the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5–7). Hence, they effectively accept that the ethics of the New Testament has no place in politics and are a private matter. All they aim for is a few minor, or even cosmetic, adjustments to the status quo, which makes them moderates, and closer to the secular than to the anti-secular end. It is important to notice that when religion is allowed in the public and political sphere, it is nearly always in this moderate form. Religious involvement in politics is accepted as long as it just concerns relatively superficial matters like abortion and euthanasia, but it has to stay outside more important areas such as economic policy, national security, and so forth. In the last half century, not just religion has been marginalized in this sense, however, but most political ideologies as well. Politics now presents itself as technocracy — preferred policies are no longer motivated by openly ideological arguments but by apparently neutral “science.” Hence, political ideology has been privatized as much as religion, or so it seems. This is not exactly the case, however. Rather than that all religion and political ideology has been forced out of politics, one specific religion or ideology has become hegemonic. That religion or ideology is neoliberal capitalism. It tolerates no competition in the political sphere, but it depends on masking itself as ideologically neutral to maintain that monopoly. Creating this image of ideological neutrality, or non-ideologicality, is the main task of mainstream, neoclassical economics. The latter pretends to be a science, but it is about as scientific as numerology or astrology and has more in common with religion or political ideology than with science.26 This is a topic that we will return to in chapter 15, but for now it needs to be noted that the degree of secularity-as-privatization (of some position) coincides with the degree of acceptance of the hegemony of neoliberal capitalism or the hegemony of cultural psychopathy, as I called it elsewhere.27 Acceptance of the status quo is acceptance of that hegemony. Locating Radical Buddhism Modernist Buddhism, which originated in the 1880s in Ceylon (Sri Lanka), Japan, and Western academies is, or was, moderate to secular on both dimensions. Secular Buddhism is a recent, Western radicalization of Buddhist modernism,28 which effectively means that it moved closer toward the secular extremes on both dimensions. Engaged Buddhism and radical Buddhism also grew in modernist soil (although they have deeper roots; see next chapter), but are much more anti-secular on the privatization dimension. Engaged Buddhists occupy themselves with charity 26 Robert Nelson, Economics as Religion: From Samuelson to Chicago and Beyond, rev. edn. (University Park: Penn State University Press, 2014); John Rapley, Twilight of the Money Gods: Economics as Religion and How It All Went Wrong (London: Simon & Schuster, 2017); David Orrell, Economyths: Ten Ways Economics Gets It Wrong (Ontario: John Wiley, 2010); John Weeks, Economics of the 1%: How Mainstream Economics Serves the Rich, Obscures Reality and Distorts Policy (London: Anthem, 2014); and Norbert Häring and Niall Douglas, Economists and the Powerful: Convenient Theories, Distorted Facts, Ample Rewards (London: Anthem, 2012). See also chapter 15, as well as the section “Problems for Subjective Consequentialism” in chapter 12. 27 Lajos Brons, The Hegemony of Psychopathy (Earth: punctum books, 2017). 28 Although it had a forerunner in late-nineteenth-century Japan. See the section “Realism and Reform in Japan — Inoue Enryō” in chapter 3. 27 28 a buddha land in this world Fig. 1.1. Five Buddhisms in a two-dimensional space. and often argue for political reform, while radical Buddhists demanded much more radical social change or even revolution, although generally a peaceful revolution. Figure 1.1 roughly locates these four modern “Buddhisms” as well as traditional(ist), mainstream Buddhism in a two-dimensional space defined by the two dimensions of secularity described above. This map of five Buddhisms is merely intended to give a clearer view of the terrain and not to give some kind of definitive classification of modern currents in Buddhist thought and practice. Nevertheless, it must be noted that my understanding of “radical Buddhism” is based on this map and, consequently, that it deviates slightly from the definition by Shields and Ladwig cited a few pages back. While their definition focuses on the political aspect, I define radical Buddhism as being radical in two respects. That is, radical Buddhists adopt a broadly naturalist stance with respect to Buddhist doctrine (and are thus secular in that sense), and they adopt a radically anti-hegemonic, revolutionary stance in political and economic affairs (and thus reject the secular marginalization of religion to the private sphere). This book is about radical Buddhism in this sense. More specifically, it is concerned with the question whether a position in the top right corner of figure 1.1 (marked with “★”) is possible. Since there have been people who have defended positions very close to that — Seno’o Girō 妹尾義郎 probably came closest29 — the answer to that question may seem to be that it is obviously possible, but that answer would be too hasty. What I am asking here is whether it is possible to develop a position that simultaneously satisfies all of the following criteria: (1) it is radically naturalist, (in a roughly Quinean or pragmatist sense); (2) it is politically radical in the sense that it rejects the status quo (meaning that it rejects neoliberal capitalism and the hegemony of psychopathy); (3) it is recognizably and defensibly Buddhist; 29 See the section “Seno’o Girō and the Youth League” in chapter 3. radical buddhism and (4) it is radical in the sense of being uncompromising, rigorous, and consistent. It is by no means obvious that any combination of just two of the first three criteria is possible, let alone all three of them, and the fourth criterion obviously adds a further complication. Nevertheless, I think the answer to my question is “yes,” but it will require more than a few pages to explain that answer. Just to be clear, the purpose of this book is not to reconstruct the philosophy of radical Buddhism, because that does not exist, but rather to take radical Buddhism to its logical conclusion, and thus to radicalize it. Naturalism A radicalized radical Buddhism is radically naturalist. This is the first criterion mentioned above. But it is not entirely clear what “naturalism” means, so before we proceed, some clarification is needed. One helpful way to classify the various naturalisms is the distinction between metaphysical naturalism, scientific naturalism, and methodological naturalism.30 Metaphysical naturalism makes a claim about the nature of reality and about what exists — roughly, the only things that exist are things that are part of the natural world. Hence, metaphysical naturalism entails the rejection of supernatural entities like gods, ghosts, spirits, and souls, but the boundary between the supernatural and the natural is not always clear. Mark Johnston has attempted to naturalize the notion of God, for example,31 and the ancient Greek philosopher Democritus naturalized the soul by claiming that it consists of especially small atoms. However, metaphysical naturalism does not just reject supernatural entities, but all non-natural entities, including abstract objects such as numbers, unless they can somehow be reduced to natural things. Many philosophers believe that numbers exist and that science depends on the assumption that numbers exist, but Hartry Field has famously argued against these beliefs.32 According to scientific naturalism, the natural sciences are the only source of reliable knowledge about reality. There is much to say for this view considering the success of the sciences, especially when compared to other models of inquiry like religion and tradition, but it is not immediately clear why the social sciences and humanities must be excluded. This exclusion seems to be based on the idea that there is something special about the scientific method of the natural sciences that is lacking in the other, lesser (?) sciences. But it is also supported by the widely shared belief that there can be one and only one correct description of reality and that the natural sciences are best positioned to give that one description. W.V.O. Quine, Hilary Putnam, Richard Rorty, and others have argued against these and related ideas and have thereby undermined at least some versions of scientific naturalism. Quine explicitly rejected the idea that there is just one correct description of reality. Rather, multiple descriptions are possible, and in a given context we should choose the one that best fits our interests and purposes.33 Rorty has attacked the same idea but has 30 See, for example, Kelly James Clark, “Naturalism and Its Discontents,” in The Blackwell Companion to Naturalism, ed. Kelly James Clark (Chichester: Wiley Blackwell, 2016), 1–15. 31 Mark Johnston, Saving God: Religion after Idolatry (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2009). 32 Hartry Field, Science without Numbers: A Defense of Nominalism, 2nd edn. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016). 33 W.V.O. Quine, “On What There Is” (1948), FLPV: 1–19; Word and Object (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1960); and “Ontological Relativity” (1969), OROE: 26–68. 29 30 a buddha land in this world also argued that there is no such thing as the scientific method, and that there is no good reason to put the natural sciences on a pedestal.34 And Putnam has pointed out that scientific naturalists tend to overlook the methodological similarities between the natural and other sciences; if there is a scientific method, it is not unique to the natural sciences.35 While metaphysical naturalism makes a claim about what kind of things exist and scientific naturalism aims to restrict our way of knowing things, including what exists, methodological materialism has more modest aims — it tells us how we should conduct our inquiries. What exactly it prescribes or forbids differs a bit between interpretations, but typically, methodological materialism forbids the appeal to supernatural entities and explanations and recommends modeling our approach to inquiry and explanation on the methods and approaches that are common in the natural sciences. These two “rules” are not entirely independent from each other. Thales is often considered the father of Western science and philosophy and of the scientific method because he was the first, as far as we know, to reject supernatural explanations. He suggested, for example, that the periodic floods of the Nile were caused by wind, while the traditional explanation appealed to the gods or other supernatural entities or events.36 Hence, the first rule is an essential part or aspect of the second. The most outspoken advocates of modeling philosophical inquiry and philosophical ideas on scientific practice were the nineteenth-century American pragmatists, Charles Sanders Peirce, William James, and John Dewey, and some of their twentieth-century heirs including Quine, Rorty, and Putnam, who were mentioned above. James argued that we should think of truth “instrumentally,” that is: Any idea upon which we can ride, so to speak; any idea that will carry us prosperously from any one part of our experience to any other part, linking things satisfactorily, working securely, simplifying, saving labor; is true for just so much, true in so far forth, true instrumentally.37 According to James, in advocating this “instrumental view of truth” he and his allies “have only followed the example of geologists, biologists and philologists.”38 (Notice that he does not just mention natural sciences.) His point is that science treats truth instrumentally: scientists accept as true that what works, “any idea upon which we can ride.” Half a century and some scientific revolutions later, it has become clear to even the most casual observer of science that there can be big changes in the ideas upon which we ride, although this should not be exaggerated. Relativistic physics has not completely replaced Newtonian physics, for example; in the physical circumstances of the world of our ordinary circumstances Newtonian physics works fine, and 34 Richard Rorty, Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1979), and Consequences of Pragmatism (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1982). 35 Hilary Putnam, Realism and Reason (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983); The Many Faces of Realism (La Salle: Open Court, 1987); and Realism with a Human Face (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1990). 36 His explanation is false, of course, but that does not matter. What matters is that it is a naturalistic explanation, while supernatural explanation was the norm. 37 William James, “Pragmatism: A New Name for Some Old Ways of Thinking” (1907), in Pragmatism and the Meaning of Truth (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1978), 1–166, at 34. Italics in original. 38 Ibid. radical buddhism relativistic physics adds little. Nevertheless, these scientific revolutions lead to an increasing awareness that the instrumental truth of science is not final truth: scientists accept ideas and theories as true, but only provisionally. (Peirce thought that if inquiry continues long enough we will eventually reach the truth, rather than some provisional, instrumental truth, but it is hard to see how we would know that we have arrived.) Influenced by pragmatism and responding to what he considered “dogmas of empiricism,” Quine argued in the 1950s and ’60s that all scientific and philosophical ideas are provisional and thus open to revision.39 Nevertheless, any revision of scientific ideas starts at the edges of our web of belief and central beliefs are only revised as a last resort. Thus, while the belief that 1 + 1 = 2 is open to revision in principle, there are very many more peripheral scientific and other ideas that are candidates for revision before considering to revise “1 + 1 = 2.” Partially on this ground, but also motivated by a version of scientific naturalism, Quine also rejected the common idea of a fundamental difference between science and philosophy: There have been philosophers who thought of philosophy as somehow separate from science, and as providing a firm basis on which to build science, but this I consider an empty dream. Much of science is firmer than philosophy is, or can ever perhaps aspire to be. I think of philosophy as continuous with science, even as a part of science. […] Philosophy lies at the abstract and theoretical end of science. Science, in the broadest sense, is a continuum that stretches from history and engineering at one extreme to philosophy and pure mathematics at the other.40 There is, then, no fundamental difference between science and philosophy in how we should choose between competing theories and ideas, and all are open to revision. Nothing is excepted: there are and can be no immutable truths. Rather, we select the theory that best explains the facts that need explaining, without appeals to dogma, without appeals to supernatural entities or processes, and we accept that our selection is no final truth. Although I present Quinean, pragmatist naturalism here as a kind of methodological naturalism, it can also be seen as a variety of scientific naturalism, albeit a rather modest variety that does not idealize science and that does not discard the social sciences and humanities. This does not mean that all nominally “scientific” views are equally valuable in all circumstances, however. Quine’s insight that alternative descriptions of reality — physical descriptions, psychological descriptions, and so forth — are possible does not mean that all descriptions are equally valuable or justified.41 Some nominally “scientific” descriptions might be useless given our purposes. Others may be insufficiently supported by evidence or even be incoherent. 39 W.V.O. Quine, “Two Dogmas of Empiricism” (1953), FLPV: 20–46; Word and Object; and “Epistemology Naturalized” (1969), OROE: 69–90. On Quine’s pragmatist naturalism, see also Paul Gregory, Quine’s Naturalism: Language, Theory, and the Knowing Subject (London: Continuum, 2008), and Jeffrey Roland, “On Naturalism in the Quinean Tradition,” in Philosophical Methodology: The Armchair or the Laboratory, ed. Matthew Haug (London: Routledge, 2014), 43–61. 40 Bryan Magee, Talking Philosophy: Dialogues with Fifteen Leading Philosophers (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1982), 143. 41 In addition to previous references to Quine’s writings, see also W.V.O. Quine, “Posits and Reality” (1955), WPOE: 246–54. 31 32 a buddha land in this world Yet others may violate principles of naturalistic explanation. Supernatural explanations most obviously violate such principles, and thus it may seem that metaphysical naturalism is implied by methodological naturalism, but even the acceptance of metaphysical naturalism (i.e., the rejection of gods, souls, spirits, etc.) is provisional. It is in principle possible that new evidence forces a change of mind, but given all we know now, that is almost as unlikely as that we would have to revise our belief that 1 + 1 = 2. The quest for certainty is a religious quest, not a scientific one; and philosophy should side with science, not with religion. Of all naturalisms, Quine’s is the most radical exactly because it incorporates the pragmatic rejection of the dogma of absolute and final certainty. Furthermore, the fourth criterion mentioned at the end of the previous section interprets “radical” as “uncompromising, rigorous, and consistent,” and the consistency of metaphysical and standard scientific naturalism is quite debatable. The first depends on a vague or even obscure boundary between the natural and the non-natural and an a priori denial of everything that lies on the wrong side of that boundary. The second is based on a heavily idealized view of the natural sciences. Such a priori rejections and idealization are very much against the spirit of naturalism, but what is even more problematic is that these naturalisms are themselves outside the scope of science. They are presented and defended as nonempirical, evidence-independent, and unchanging (i.e., unrevisable), hence, as the very opposite of naturalism. There are, moreover, other reasons to accept some version of Quinean naturalism here. Aside from implying variants of metaphysical and scientific naturalism and helping to make sense of the modernist reidentification of Buddhism as philosophy or science (see above), the philosophy of Quine and his student Donald Davidson will also help fill in some details where Buddhist philosophy alone does not provide sufficiently clear answers. There are important similarities between Davidson’s and Quine’s philosophy of language and the ideas of the Yogācāra philosophers Dignāga and Dharmakīrti, for example,42 and especially Davidson’s ideas will help to merge elements of Yogācāra and Tiantai 天台 into a coherent whole that can serve as the metaphysical and epistemological foundation of a radical Buddhism as well as to connect that foundation to a theory of normative ethics that builds on ideas found in the writings of Asaṅga and Śāntideva.43 Aside from four Buddhist philosophers mentioned in the previous paragraph, this section has only mentioned Western philosophers, which might give the impression that naturalism is a Western affair. But nothing could be further from the truth. Variants of naturalism have become influential in parts of Western philosophy — analytic philosophy mainly — but this is really quite a recent development and if one looks further back in history there are probably more examples of naturalism (or ideas close to naturalism) to be found in India and China than in Europe. The most obvious example in the Indian philosophical tradition is Cārvāka, but Dale Riepe suggested that the possibly mythical philosopher Uddālaka, mentioned in the 42 Lajos Brons, “Dharmakīrti, Davidson, and Knowing Reality,” Comparative Philosophy 3, no. 1 (2012): 30–57, and “Meaning and Reality: A Cross-Traditional Encounter,” in Constructive Engagement of Analytic and Continental Approaches in Philosophy, eds. Bo Mou and R. Tieszen (Leiden: Brill, 2013), 199–220. See also the last two sections of chapter 8. 43 Buddhism has no clear meta-ethics, for example, and Davidson’s philosophy provides what is needed to construct a meta-ethics that creates a coherent bridge between metaphysics and epistemology on the one hand and normative ethics on the other. radical buddhism Upanishads, and early Vaiśeṣika were naturalistic as well, and he found elements of naturalism in Jainism and Buddhism.44 To what extent Uddālaka and early Vaiśeṣika were naturalistic is debatable, but the latter “Hindu” school is an interesting case because, like Democritus, it naturalized the soul by assuming that it consists of a special kind of atoms. By far the most interesting naturalist in the Chinese philosophical tradition is the first-century philosopher Wang Chong 王充, an autodidact with an encyclopedic knowledge who was driven by a strong aversion to fashionable nonsense and the “flowery and artificial writing” 華偽之文 that he perceived to be customary in his day. In contrast to the latter, his book Lunheng 論衡, was intended to promote truth and to dispel falsehoods by means of a two-faced philosophical method of questioning 問 what is unclear and challenging 難, what is false or invalid.45 The latter he generally did by means of clear, unadorned, and direct arguments.46 For example, the chapter on spirits or ghosts 鬼 opens with the following passage: People say that the dead become spirits, have consciousness, and can harm people. [If we] test this [idea] by examining different kinds of creatures [we can] verify that the dead do not become spirits, don’t have consciousness, and cannot harm people. How can we verify this? We can verify it from [other] creatures. Man is a creature, and [other] creatures are also creatures. If [another] creature dies it doesn’t become a spirit, so for what reason would only humans become spirits when they die? […] If we cannot separate [humans from other creatures], we have no reason to assume that [humans] can become spirits.47 This introduction is then followed by a battery of short arguments intended to prove that there is no soul or spirit and that nothing is left after death after the body has rotted away.48 As mentioned, Wang Chong particularly disliked “flowery writing.” He argued that the “common people” are all too easily bewitched by exciting ideas in an attractive package: It is the nature of common people to enjoy strange sayings and uphold false and absurd writings. Why is this? [Because] the truth cannot be grasped quickly [or] easily, while flowery falsehoods astound the hearers and move their minds.49 44 Dale Riepe, The Naturalistic Tradition in Indian Thought (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1961). 45 About Wang Chong’s philosophical method, see Alexus McLeod, “A Reappraisal of Wang Chong’s Critical Method through the ‘Wenkong Chapter’,” Journal of Chinese Philosophy 34, no. 4 (2007): 581–96. On Wang Chong in general, see Alexus McLeod, The Philosophical Thought of Wang Chong (Cham: Palgrave MacMillan, 2018). 46 Many of Wang’s arguments are in modus tollens (if p then q; not q; therefore, not p), which is not remarkable in itself — rather, according to Christoph Harbsmeier, Science and Civilization in China, Vol. 7: The Social Background, Part 1: Language and Logic in Traditional China (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), modus tollens was a very common argument form in ancient China — but his application stands out for its transparency and explicitness. 47 世謂死人為鬼，有知，能害人。試以物類驗之，死人不為鬼，無知，不能害人。何以驗之？驗之 以物。人、物也，物、亦物也。物死不為鬼，人死何故獨能為鬼？世能別人物不能為鬼，則為鬼 不為鬼尚難分明。如不能別，則亦無以知其能為鬼也。人之所以生者，精氣也，死而精氣滅。… 如不能別，則亦無以知其能為鬼也。— Wang Chong 王充,《論衡》 〈論死〉 , (ca. 80), §§1–2. 48 Most of these arguments are in modus tollens. See two notes before this one. 49 世俗之性，好奇怪之語，說虛妄之文。何則？實事不能快意，而華虛驚耳動心也。— Wang Chong,《論衡》 〈對作〉 , , §2. 33 34 a buddha land in this world And consequently, “in the writings of the people all truth is lost, and false and absurd doctrines subvert what is real and virtuous [or] beautiful.”50 There is an obvious antipopulist or even elitist sentiment in these claims, but Wang has a point that “flowery and artificial writing” has an advantage in the marketplace of ideas. The relative obscurity of Wang may even confirm this point. He responded to the proliferation of “empty falsehoods” 虛 with relatively dry and unexciting arguments, which probably did not contribute much to his popularity. Nevertheless, it is an example worth following. Excitement is not a proxy for truth. More often the opposite is true. The more exotic and exciting an idea, the more likely it is false. Methodological naturalism is, as the term implies, primarily concerned with how to conduct inquiries. It can be said with a very high degree of confidence that naturalistic inquiry leads to metaphysically naturalistic conclusions, but it is the way that determines the inquiry’s nature, and not its end or findings. The consistency criterion, the fourth criterion mentioned at the end of the previous section, requires that if some form of methodological naturalism is adopted here, it must be adopted as a guiding principle in how this inquiry is conducted as well. This has at least two important implications. Firstly, methodological naturalism restricts the grounds for acceptance of some theory or idea. That is, it should (provisionally!) be accepted if and only if it is supported by the best available evidence. Tradition or authority do not count as evidence and are thus not appropriate grounds for acceptance, and neither is scripture, unless there are independent reasons to accept the content of some text as probably true. And secondly, methodological naturalism requires clarity, and thus takes exception to ambiguity, obscurity, and “flowery writing.” The reliance on the best available evidence commanded by naturalism has an important corollary. If a view, theory, or idea is based on the best available evidence, then that evidence justifies the provisional acceptance of that view, theory, or idea as true. And consequently, if a view simultaneously satisfies the criteria of naturalism and is “recognizably and defensibly Buddhist” (criterion 3 in the previous section), then this implies that the right view is a Buddhist view, or in other words, that I should (again, provisionally) accept a variant of Buddhism as true. I do indeed accept that conclusion, but despite that, I do not consider myself a “Buddhist” for reasons explained in chapter 5.51 A Plethora of -isms One implication of the clarity requirement (i.e., the second methodological implication of naturalism mentioned above) is that much attention will be given in this book to problems of language. “Philosophical problems arise when language goes on holiday,” said Wittgenstein famously,52 and some of the worst philosophical problems arise due to equivocations — confusions of different meanings of the same word. While there are terms in the Buddhist tradition that are ambiguous or polysemous,53 it is Western philosophy that is probably the worst offender in this respect. And worst of all are the various -isms. Many philosophical terms ending 50 51 52 53 起眾書並失實，虛妄之言勝真美也。— Ibid. See the section “What Is a Buddhist?” in chapter 5. Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophische Untersuchungen (1953; Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp, 1975), §38. Chapter 5 will discuss several, including the notion of a “middle way” and the concept(s) of dukkha (suffering). radical buddhism in -ism — such as “realism,” “idealism,” “materialism” — have at least two entirely different meanings within philosophy and another unrelated meaning in ordinary language. Other, more technical -isms are ill-defined and differently interpreted. If a word ends in -ism that is almost a guarantee that there is widespread disagreement and misunderstanding about the meanings (in the plural!) of that word. Indeed, even the term “Buddhism” is ambiguous. Unfortunately, -isms are unavoidable in this book, and consequently, many pages are devoted to distinguishing and describing variants of various -isms in an attempt to improve clarity and avoid confusion and equivocation. The previous section, discussing “naturalism,” is a case in point. “Materialism” and the related concept of “physicalism” are discussed in chapter 4. “Buddhism,” obviously a key concept here given the aim of this book, is the topic of chapter 5. The polysemy of “realism” is addressed in chapter 7 and also touched upon in chapter 2. “Idealism” is discussed briefly in chapters 2 and 4 and more extensively in chapter 7. Other -isms examined in this book include “essentialism,” “relativism,” “perspectivism” (all in chapter 7), “coherentism” (in chapter 9), “consequentialism” (in chapter 12), “capitalism” (in chapter 15), and “Utopianism” (in chapter 16). A Guide to This Book This book consists of four parts. The aim of the book as a whole is to radicalize radical Buddhism, and the purpose of part I is to clarify what that means. Toward that end, it sketches the history and prehistory of radical Buddhism and adjacent modern Buddhisms, discusses some important patterns and trends therein, investigates what it means to call something or someone “Buddhist,” and considers what all of this implies for the project of this book. That project — radicalizing radical Buddhism — is the topic of parts II and III, which focus on metaphysics and epistemology (in part II) and on ethics and social philosophy (in part III), respectively. The final, and very short part IV returns to the four criteria of this book’s goal and presents some closing thoughts and conclusions. Part I consists of six chapters including this one. Chapters 2 and 3 sketch parts of the prehistory and history of radical Buddhism and related modern Buddhisms such as Buddhist modernism, engaged Buddhism, secular Buddhism, and so forth. Chapter 2 discusses the philosophical roots of radical Buddhism and related modern Buddhisms in the history of Buddhist thought. The aim of the chapter is not to give a complete account of the history of Buddhist philosophy, but to selectively sketch some of the precursors and foundations of the social engagement, this-worldly focus, and rationalism that characterize radical Buddhism. Chapter 3, the longest chapter of this book, introduces relevant ideas of a number of radical Buddhists, engaged Buddhists, and others. Like chapter 2 it does not give a complete overview. That would make this book at least two times thicker than it already is.54 Rather, it focuses on the more radical among the many modern Buddhists.55 This, of course, raises the question what it means to be more or less radical. 54 Nevertheless, chapter 3 aims for geographical completeness by covering as much of the Buddhist world as possible. 55 Explicitly excluded from the scope of chapter 3 are radicals and activists who do not primarily identify themselves as Buddhist but merely take some inspiration or ideas from Buddhism. This should not be taken to imply that those have nothing to offer, however, but chapter 3 is already long enough. One example of such “radicalism with Buddhist elements,” as opposed to “radical Bud- 35 36 a buddha land in this world Roughly, a Buddhism or Buddhist is more radical on the sociopolitical dimension if they demand more sweeping reform, more explicitly (or more prominently) reject capitalism, or demand (or allow, at least) a greater political role for Buddhism. Many radical Buddhists associate themselves with some kind of socialism or anarchism and there are levels of radicality in that respect as well; that is, Marxism and communism are more radical than social democracy or utopian socialism,56 and anarchism based on the ideas of Kropotkin is more radical than that based on Tolstoy or other primitivist anarchisms. A Buddhism or Buddhist is more radical on the naturalistic dimension to the extent that it or they unconditionally accept science, reject supernatural entities and explanations, and focus on this world and this life, rather than on some kind of afterlife or otherworldly paradise. Based on these and other criteria, Chapter 4 opens with a provisional map of the landscape of radical Buddhism and its neighbors. The chapter is mainly concerned, however, with some patterns and trends among radical and engaged Buddhists, particularly the reluctance to accept materialism. To a large extent this reluctance is rooted in misunderstandings which are partially caused by the polysemy of “materialism.” As mentioned in the previous section, within philosophy, “materialism” means a number of very different things, and it has a further unrelated meaning in ordinary language. Chapter 4 also discusses the common lack of “systemic” perspectives in Buddhism and the consequent tendency to seek the causes of worldly suffering in moral defects, thereby often missing their real causes, and looks into the role of ideology. The goal of this book — developing a naturalist and sociopolitically radical philosophy that is recognizably and defensibly Buddhist — only makes sense if there is a clear way or criterion to tell whether something is indeed “recognizably and defensibly Buddhist,” but deciding whether some doctrine, theory, or idea is “Buddhist” is not as easy and straightforward as it may seem, as will be shown in chapter 5. Attempts to define Buddhism by appealing to some kind of essence end up excluding much of what has been called “Buddhist” and stumble upon other problems as well. For that reason, the approach adopted in this book is more or less genetic or historical: a theory, doctrine, practice, or idea is Buddhist if most of what it is based on is Buddhist and if it could not just as well be based on non-Buddhist sources. The final chapter of the first part of the book wraps up the “groundwork” by summarizing some of the key findings of part I and zooming in on the most important schools and sources for parts II and III. Additionally, chapter 6 also discusses the common Buddhist modernist idea that Buddhism is a philosophy rather than a religion. Based on the groundwork of part I, parts II and III of this book focus on reality and what we can know about it, and on social and ethical questions respectively. Part II proposes a “perspectival realism” that is based mostly on Yogācāra and Tiantai dhism,” can be found in the writings of the Dutch Marxist philosopher Jasper Schaaf, Boeddhisme en betrokkenheid: Kan de Boeddha-Darma bijdragen aan een marxistisch georiënteerde inzet van maatschappelijke betrokkenheid? (Groningen: Dialectiek, 2000). Schaaf argued for a Buddhist-inspired “middle path” between excessive social engagement and involvement (Dutch: betrokkenheid) leading to burnout or disillusionment on the one hand and excessive detachment on the other. A “reasonable distance” is needed to allow long-term, genuine social engagement, and Buddhism offers the tools toward that end. 56 The term “utopian socialism” does not refer to non-Marxist socialism here but to any kind of socialism that is centered on a picture of an ideal society. radical buddhism Buddhism and, to a lesser extent, on the philosophy of W.V.O. Quine and Donald Davidson. Building on these metaphysical and epistemological foundations but also appealing to the thought of important moral thinkers from the Buddhist traditions such as Asaṅga and Śāntideva, part III defends a moral theory that could be called “negative expectivism,” and discusses this theory’s implications. Of particular concern in part III is an assessment of the anti-capitalism shared by most radical Buddhists. More detailed chapter overviews of parts II and III can be found at the end of the introductions to those two parts. What This Book Is Not About A corollary of the sociopolitical dimension of secularity is a focus on society rather than the individual. And a corollary of the secularity-as-naturalism dimension is indifference to traditional, supernatural-oriented ritual. This has important implications for a radicalized radical Buddhism, the hypothetical position located at the “★” in figure 1.1. Western Buddhists and many other Buddhist modernists appear to identify Buddhism primarily with meditation, and the aim of traditional monastic Buddhism is personal liberation (i.e., awakening, enlightenment, nirvāṇa). But these practices and aims are focused almost exclusively on the individual57 and are consequently outside the scope of radical Buddhism. Many Asian Buddhists are more likely to identify Buddhism with rituals or with stories that help make sense of the world and give meaning to their lives, but these too are outside the scope of radical Buddhism. Because of its social and naturalistic orientation, radical Buddhism is not really concerned with mindfulness meditation, personal liberation, ritual, and other individual or traditional aspects of Buddhism. It is relatively indifferent to the aspects of Buddhism that seem to be most paradigmatically “Buddhist” to most Buddhists. This does not mean that it is incompatible with those, or that it rejects them. On the contrary, most radical Buddhists also emphasized the importance of these aspects of Buddhism at times. What it does mean is that they are not part of radical Buddhism. And this has two important implications. Firstly, it could be argued that radical Buddhism as a variety of Buddhism is incomplete and needs to be supplemented with “non-radical” practices and other elements.58 Secondly, because this book is about radical Buddhism, most of these “non-radical” practices and elements are outside the scope of this book. Hence, mindfulness meditation, personal liberation, and ritual will receive very little attention here.59 57 This is not entirely true in the case of Mahāyāna Buddhism. Therein, the primary purpose of personal liberation is to acquire the capability to help others achieve liberation as well. See next chapter. 58 The question whether and to what extent it is possible to combine radical Buddhism with certain elements of traditional Buddhism to remedy this incompleteness is addressed in the section “Posits and Phenomenal Reality” in chapter 9. 59 Some other kinds of meditation are discussed briefly in the section “Suffering, Shock, and Intoxication” in chapter 13. 37