Buddha, Dharma, Sangha: Buddhism And The Buddhist Life In Thialand, by Gerald Roscoe

Gerald Roscoe, one of those Westerners who became besotted by Buddhism and then sought to popularize it to other Westerners, wrote this book as a short three-volume introduction to Buddhism and the Buddhist life in Thailand, focusing on the Therevada tradition, assuming it to be the genuine tradition from the elders. It is clear the author has a biased perspective, though he deserves credit for at least wrestling with the questions and problems that critical Westerners (myself included) have about Buddhism.

The book is in three short volumes (each a little less than 100 quarto pages), and I read it slightly out of order, which proved a bit irritating. The first volume deals with Buddha’s life, with a great deal of myths and stories that are worth exploring in at least some detail. The second volume deals with the good life, at least insofar as it can be lived by a lay Buddhist. This book is particularly irritating because it includes portions of the other two volumes and because it takes Buddhism out of order and somewhat out of context in order to make it more appealing to its Western audience. The third volume deals with the monastic life, about which I have much to say, little of it flattering.

That said, let us begin. The first volume gives a generally chronological look at the life of he who became Buddha. The author generally takes a rationalistic tone, but also passes along a lot of myths in which a lot of nagas appear. The fact that so many nagas (clearly demonic figures) wished to enter into Buddhism, and furthermore, the fact that initiates into Buddhist monkhood are called Naga, suggests a deep level of Satanic influence within Buddhism that is not hard to understand. It is clear from a discussion of the history of Buddha that Buddha was himself a man not immune to sexual lusts (whatever he had to say about them), and that he was both extremely sensitive to the suffering of humanity and also rather prickly. He is not alone in these failings, though. It is also clear from this volume, however the author fails to deal with it, that Buddhism is basically a gnostic form of Hinduism, with a harsh anti-speculative bias and rather paradoxical attitudes toward the many and the one, seeking as nirvana the mystical rejection of the self in the mystical union with the Platonic “one,” and with ascetic gnostic attitudes toward avoiding intoxicants as well as the forbidding of marriage and the hostility toward family that one would expect from the “conservative” gnostic lines, applied to a Hindu rather than Christian base, but with plenty of similarities.

It becomes rather plain in the second volume that Buddhism’s connection with conservative gnostic Christianity is very close. Interestingly enough, this accounts for the appeal of both irrational belief systems to those who consider themselves particularly intellectual or enlightened. Most of Buddhism appears full of self-appointed moral precepts with a great deal of flexibility in their enforcement (for example, Buddhists believe that it is improper to have intoxicating beverages, at least officially, but alcoholism is rampant here). Of course, without any God there are no ‘laws,’ and karma ends up requiring both free will and the rejection of any concept of the ‘self.’ Of course, there are past and future lives for any who are not lucky/good enough to escape the endless cycle of rebirths. One believes that all is mana and illusion while at the same time practicing breathing techniques to become aware of one’s thoughts and attempt to subdue one’s thinking processes.

Perhaps the most troubling volume is the volume on the monastic life. It becomes increasingly clear as one reads that the Buddhist monkhood is a parasitic influence on the nation of Thailand and other Buddhist nations. Buddhist monks shun family, avoid participation in the public, perform no useful economic or moral purpose, and yet they expect the laity to donate money and food to earn merit even as they leech off of society and show a sense of self-righteous superiority, demanding deference from others while they obey (perhaps) self-appointed precepts and have a show of righteousness while lacking the reality of it. Worse, there is a widespread perception that someone isn’t fully a man until they have spent a few months (usually in the rainy season) donning the saffron robes, as if someone needed to become a bum before they became a man. Needless to say, that sort of influence is a negative one on nations where Buddhism is prevalent.

Given all of the high praise (much of it undeserved) that the author has for Buddhist thought and practice, the author spends very little time talking about the sort of matters I would find most interesting. There is little conversation about the history of Buddhism, or how it broke up into different schools. There is little conversation about why every nation that has adopted Buddhism has supplemented it with other beliefs (Hindu Brahmanism for Angkor, Ayuttaya, and modern Thailand, Confucianism and Taoism for China, Shintoism for Japan, animism for Mongolia and Tibet, and so on). The author doesn’t appear to recognize the glaring fault of Buddhism in its lack of interest in dealing with questions of birth and death. Perhaps he was too interested in avoiding wrongful clinging to address such obviously unpleasant matters.

At any rate, despite the book’s clear bias and its total lack of understanding of Western religions, or the clear connections between Buddhism and its other gnostic cousins, it remains a worthwhile read. This is so not necessarily because the book is all that excellent, but because the author’s rationalism and sincerity makes it possible to appreciate the serious and many problems of Buddhism clearly and honestly. The fact that the three volumes are all very short (each can be read in about half an hour to an hour or so if one is a reasonably speedy reader) also helps matters considerably, since Buddhism isn’t worth too much time unless you’re writing a book on its origins within the Great Pagan Reformation.