The Secular Buddhist movement and cultural appropriation. Buddhism, but better(?)

As part of my series critiquing the Secular Buddhist movement, I thought it worthwhile to take a deeper look at the phenomenon of cultural appropriation, by taking a look at how we define culture.

One of the claims of the Secular Buddhist movement is that culture can be separated from “the Dhamma”. Now, let’s begin by having a look at the definition of culture and cultural appropriation and see whether this particular feat is possible.

For my analysis, I’ll look at two definitions of the word “culture” as listed in the Oxford Learners Dictionaries:

Definition one states that culture is/are: the customs and beliefs, art, way of life and social organization of a particular country or group.

Definition four states that culture is/are: the beliefs and attitudes about something that people in a particular group or organization share.

For the definition of cultural appropriation, I’ll be using an article from NCCP.org:

Cultural Appropriation: “Taking intellectual property, traditional knowledge, cultural expressions, or artifacts from someone else’s culture without permission. This can include unauthorized use of another culture’s dance, dress, music, language, folklore, cuisine, traditional medicine, religious symbols, etc. It’s most likely to be harmful when the source community is a minority group that has been oppressed or exploited in other ways or when the object of appropriation is particularly sensitive, e.g. sacred objects.” (Who Owns Culture? Appropriation and Authenticity in American Law; Susan Scafidi)

So we can see that: cultural appropriation refers to a phenomenon, where dominant groups can change the very meanings of the cultural capital of other non-dominant groups and thereby marginalise the source community.

Now, let’s look at some claims in the FAQ section from the Secular Buddhism website. I’ve placed the entire section on appropriation here, and as you will see, problematic ideas around culture become immediately apparent, when placed alongside the Oxford Learners Dictionaries definition:

2.We reject the appropriation of Asian/Diasporic culture/s as part of engagement with the Dhamma
You will see many references to separating the Dhamma from specific Asian/Diasporic cultures.

Given the dictionary definition of culture, one has to wonder in what way is separation of “the Dhamma” from Asian/Diasporic culture (or say, any other culture) even possible? If my point is not immediately apparent, allow me to tug at this particular conceptual thread a bit more:

If definitions one and four apply to all human communities, it stands to reason that culture is an inevitable by-product of all these human communities, whether religious or secular. So then again, the question is, how is it possible that a separation of “the Dhamma” is possible from culture?

For this to be possible, the following phenomenon should be scientifically observable and demonstrable:

1) That certain groups of humans are devoid of culture,

2) which puts them in a position to extract “the Dhamma” from another group of humans who have a culture.

If that is the claim, then we must ask, how do these humans attain the state devoid of culture? Is there some facet of their development that renders them thus? Could it be linked their “secular” worldview? If so, how does the secular worldview render these humans immune to generating culture, as defined in the Oxford Learners Dictionary? Would it not make more sense to claim that “the Dhamma” moves — through the concerted effort of individuals and groups — from one cultural context to another?

So in my view, the claim that “the Dhamma” is separable from culture, is not only impossible as an ontological claim, but also obscures the implicitly religious claim: that “the Dhamma” is a set of transcendent truths that exist outside of time, space and culture and that it can be extracted/mined from those who remain mired in culture.

At this point, we can see that we’ve moved far from a “secular” worldview to an explicitly religious one. This is a particularly curious position for the Secular Buddhist movement to hold. Is Secular Buddhism even a secular movement at it’s foundation? If the claim is yes, given the claims about culture and Dhamma above, what renders it so? Surely it can’t hinge on the existence of devas and rebirth etc, since many Heritage Buddhism(s) place little to no emphasis on these phenomena.

Unfortunately, these are often read as attacks on those cultures; it is claimed that this separation is due to an aversion to these cultures or as a preliminary step to appropriation. Truthfully, some of the confusion is our fault.

Actually, as far as I can tell, this has not been the claim at all. The claim has been, that existing Buddhist traditions have been subject to the colonial gaze, framing these traditions as a degeneration of a pure unadulterated version located in the distant past. In fact, Western, normative narratives/histories of “Buddhism”, are essentially those of degeneration and contamination. This is why we still see the widespread misunderstanding of Vajrayana and Mahayana Pure Land teachings as “later”, degenerate forms of a “purer” form of Buddhism.

This Western, colonial gaze continues to frame living Buddhist traditions as simply collections of moribund rituals and superstitions. And that “the Dhamma” can be extracted, to be spirited off to lands where humans have no culture, to forever exist there in pristine glory, far from the mindless religious and superstitious masses.

However, many non-Asian Buddhists continue to practice Buddhism(s) in their traditional forms while applying creative innovations to reach people from other cultural milieus. This makes perfect sense, as the task in rendering “Buddhism” intelligible to others, will require cross-cultural understanding, religious literacy and most basic of all, that Buddhist ideas — in this process — are shifting/moving from one cultural context to another.

We haven’t been able to find the right words to express ourselves. (However, we’re going to try here and now:)

The opposite is actually true. We do not wish to appropriate these cultures with our practice of the Dhamma. For those of more European descent, this prevents a repetition of historical harms.

If this is the case, my recommendations would be the following:

1) Redress of the historical harms that have been done to heritage Buddhists,

2) acknowledging that cultural adaptation and exchange is actually what should be happening

3) Disavow — in theory and practice — the harmful idea that “the Dhamma” can be separated from cultures

For those of more BI/POC descent, this allows us to engage with the Dhamma without dealing more harm to our already harmed (by Imperialism) cultures (i.e. there is a responsibility to uphold our own cultures to combat harm to those cultures that the adoption of Heritage Buddhist forms can interfere with).

Once again, the same misunderstanding is repeated here. The issue for Heritage Buddhists, is not that “people from one culture should not participate in the culture of another”. That position, is not only impossible, but is in fact a straw man of the phenomenon of cultural appropriation, largely perpetuated by those who refuse to intellectually engage with these issues and cast negative aspersions on Heritage Buddhists who raise concerns they deem valid.

And for Asian/Diasporic Secular Buddhists specifically, this allows practice of forms that are not specific to their specific ethnicity without similar issues around appropriation and harm to the practitioner’s culture (i.e. a person of Thai heritage could explore elements of Zen without issues that might otherwise arise).

The example above is logically unsound, as Zen Buddhism, is very much the historical contribution of Chinese Buddhists. Chinese cultural engagement with Indic ideas, literally gave the world the basis of the Zen traditions we know today. Again, people of different cultures sharing practices is not the definition of cultural appropriation.

This is why we seek a separation of specific cultures from the Dhamma — to prevent appropriation and to facilitate access to the Dhamma by those of BI/POC descent (who otherwise may have to choose between the Dhamma and healing their cultures) — and NEVER as a form of erasure.

As the reader can see above, once again, the magical claim is made regarding separating the dhamma from specific cultures.

The Asian/Diasporic peoples who started and maintained (i.e. transmitted) Buddhist Forms for millennia, allowing for Secular Buddhism to eventually arise — our Dhamma ancestors — have our deep and explicit gratitude for that and always have. (And, again, part of that gratitude is making sure that we do NOT harm cultures with appropriation as part of our practice of the Dhamma.)

Here we can see a carefully crafted paragraph meant to give the reader the impression that the secular Buddhist movement is simply another school of Buddhism. I will not delve into the doctrinal issues (in this article at least) that make the above claim problematic. I will say, that from the authors point of view, the Secular Buddhist movement seems to require this association, to position themselves as legitimate heirs to the extant Buddhist traditions that have their wellspring in Asia.

The fact that a vast (and growing number) of Buddhists (regardless of heritage), by and large do not recognise them as such, should make us pause and reflect on what is actually being touted as Buddhist Dhamma “without culture”. It is the authors opinion, that the Secular Buddhist movement is “Buddhist” only in so far as association with an “Asian religion” can add legitimacy and orientalist mystique to their particular quasi-religious movement.

So, to some up: the claim that “the Dhamma” can be separated from cultures renders the cultural biases of those engaged in this magical process invisible. It renders their assumptions of what constitutes “the Dhamma” and what does not, opaque. Who gets to decide what constitutes the “core” of a tradition and what cultural conditioning is at play when making these decisions?

Buddhists, heritage or not, should be willing to engage this movement with the difficult questions it repeatedly refuses to answer. Secular Buddhists continue to build institutions, invoking the name of a world religion, of which they claim to be — simultaneously — members and secular detractors of.

This astounding position however, makes perfect sense if one factors in cultural appropriation, driven by materialist, scientistic, capitalist concerns and reinforced by orientalism, a form of racial essentialism.