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{\plain \f1 WHY STUDY BUDDHISM?\par
}{\plain \f1 \par
}{\plain \f1 Michel Clasquin.\par
}{\plain \f1 Department of Religious Studies.\par
}{\plain \f1 University of South Africa.\par
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{\plain \f1 ABSTRACT\par
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{\plain \f1 \par
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{\plain \f1 In this essay, the value and relevance of the study of Buddhism generally 
and at the University of South Africa in particular are described. Despite 
the small number of Buddhists in South Africa, Buddhology can benefit us 
by provide valuable clues to our understanding of contemporary social 
events and by providing an alternative paradigm for the appraisal of 
philosophical and theological questions.\par
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{\plain \f1 \par
}{\plain \f1 It is valuable for academics to reflect from time to time on why they do 
what they do, and the relevance of their study fields for the wider 
community. Not that relevance is the only criterion by which to determine 
what should or should not be studied \_ the acquisition of knowledge for its 
own sake has ever been a driving force of the human species with its innate 
monkey curiosity. Furthermore, what is irrelevant today may be of vital 
importance tomorrow and vice versa. The periodic table, for instance, is the 
crowning achievement of nineteenth\_century physics, but at the time, its 
relevance was highly dubious: it would simply not have been possible for 
Queen Victoria, Abraham Lincoln or Paul Kruger to assemble the foremost 
scientists of the day and say, "Gentlemen, I should like you to invent the 
fast breeder reactor". The acquisition of knowledge and understanding for 
their own sakes is and should remain an important aspect of any university's 
academic programme.\par
}{\plain \f1 \par
}{\plain \f1 But even if the contemporary relevance of a given field of study is only one 
factor in determining whether it is worth studying, it is nevertheless an 
important one. In this essay, I shall examine my own primary field of 
interest, the academic study of Buddhism, and attempt to justify its 
existence. Needless to say, an "objective" approach to such a topic is 
almost a contradiction in terms \_ this is primarily an apologetic for 
Buddhology, and I shall leave it to others to criticise my work and judge 
whether my attempt has been successful. Hopefully, this will start a debate 
on the justifiability of other religiously\_oriented disciplines as well.\par
}{\plain \f1 \par
}{\plain \f1 So, why study Buddhism? And more particularly, why study Buddhism at Unisa? 
The first, most immediately obvious answer is that there are Buddhists in 
this country, and that by studying the fundamental tenets and the practical 
implications of their tradition, we can render the same kind of service to 
them that, say, a theologian can render to the Christian community or an 
expert in Islam to the Muslim section of the population. While this argument 
is valid on the face of it, it contains two defects. Firstly, it does not 
question the societal worth of theological and religious studies; it simply 
assumes that such studies are worthwhile. As I shall attempt to demonstrate 
below, the study of religious phenomena, in this case Buddhism, is in fact 
indispensable for our complete understanding of the human life\_world in 
general and contemporary society in particular, and brings many practical 
benefits, but this must be established by argument, not merely assumed. 
Secondly, the argument falls rather flat in a country like South Africa, 
where Buddhists make up a negligibly small part of the population.\par
}{\plain \f1 \par
}{\plain \f1 If the number of adherents is to be the deciding factor on the question 
which subjects are to be studied, then the existence of Buddhist studies at 
South African universities would imply that we should also have scholars and 
even whole academic departments specialising in the fulltime study of the 
International Society for Krishna Consciousness, the Ahmadiyya movement in 
Islam, Zoroastrianism, and so on. In fact, while there are certain scholars 
of religion with a interest in these fields, they generally subsume their 
studies under other headings, subdivisions of Religious Studies such as 
Hindu, Islamic or Ancient Near Eastern studies. But Buddhology is recognised 
as a distinct research field with equal status to these; it is presented by 
Religious Studies departments worldwide as an integral part of the 
curriculum and in more affluent societies such as the USA, there are in fact 
academic institutes entirely devoted to this subject (e.g. the Kuroda 
Institute for the study of Buddhism and human values at the University of 
Illinois). Not many of them, it is true, but the subject is clearly 
recognised as a valid and valuable area of study.\par
}{\plain \f1 \par
}{\plain \f1 It is however true that an understanding of Buddhism will assist us in our 
understanding of and dealings with traditionally Buddhist societies. Since 
many of these are situated on the Pacific Rim, currently the global economic 
growthpoint and containing some of South Africa's major trading partners, 
such as Japan and Korea, this may yet become an increasingly important 
issue. If Japanese businesspeople attain their competitive edge by reading 
the deeply Zen Buddhist\_inspired "Book of three rings" by the legendary 
samurai Minamoto Musashi (1982:22), perhaps they know something we do not.\par
}{\plain \f1 A more sophisticated variant of the above argument is as follows: while it 
is true that there are but a few committed Buddhists in South Africa, 
western society, of which South Africa is at least partly a member, is 
slowly being permeated with oriental influences. Youngsters who thirty years 
ago would have taken up boxing now do karate. Even small towns have ikebana 
displays in the annual show of the local flower arranging club, not to 
mention the popularity of bonsai trees. Certain trends in art, fashion and 
architecture show an affinity with Japanese ideals of simplicity and 
spontaneity or, conversely, with a riotous display of colours and patterns 
that may be seen as a manifestation of Sino\_Tibetan influences. The 
inspiration behind all these new Oriental influences, the argument 
continues, is Buddhist philosophy and the Buddhist view of reality and the 
ideal life. Thus, if we wish to understand what is happening to our society 
and possibly take steps to either prevent or facilitate this paradigm shift, 
we should study Buddhism. A similar argument could naturally be made in 
respect of the popularity of hatha yoga and the study of Hinduism.\par
}{\plain \f1 \par
}{\plain \f1 It was on grounds such as the above, that the Northern Transvaal synod of 
the Dutch Reformed Church in 1983 expressed its concern over the Buddhist 
influences discernible in the practice of karate (Nederduitse Gereformeerde 
Kerk 1983: 177; see also Gous 1983: 125\_208). While I do not share the 
negative assessment of Buddhist influences that underlies this decision, the 
logic underlying their decision is valid and, in my opinion, sound within 
the synod's prevailing paradigm. Other commentators, especially, it appears, 
those of a Jungian bent, have reacted in the opposite way, welcoming the 
change with open arms (e.g. Standen 1987: 125\_143).\par
}{\plain \f1 \par
}{\plain \f1 Such an argument can easily be taken to quite ridiculous extremes, as can be 
demonstrated by inverting it; baseball and golf are currently two of the 
most popular spectator and participant sports, respectively, in Japan. 
Purely on this basis, would we advise the Japanese to study Christianity? 
(cf. Schmidt, quoted in Gous 1983: 192) But such flippancies apart, there 
remains an element of truth in the argument. It is true that traditional 
oriental society did not draw the rigid distinctions between the "sacred" 
and the "secular" spheres of existence that westerners are accustomed to. 
Martial arts can serve as a way of losing the concept of selfhood and 
attuning to the totality of existence, and ikebana can be an expression of 
one's understanding of the emptiness of conditioned reality.\par
}{\plain \f1 \par
}{\plain \f1 They need not be this, of course. Most occidental practitioners of karate 
see their pursuit of this art purely as a form of physical exercise and 
self\_defence. But, the argument goes, something of the original inspiration 
behind these activities remains. If we prefer not to understand this on a 
too esoteric level, then perhaps we can express it as follows: the 
possibility exists that the practitioner of karate or ikebana might decide 
to read books about their respective arts, and there encounter descriptions 
of the origins of their pursuits and how these are related to Buddhist 
philosophy. This might then lead, if not to an outright adoption of Buddhist 
principles, to an appreciation of and behaviour commensurate with Buddhist 
practices. If this were to occur on a sufficiently large scale, the result 
would be a drift towards the gradual Buddhification of society.\par
}{\plain \f1 \par
}{\plain \f1 Naturally, whether one approves of such a process or not depends on one's 
own prior commitments and one's opinion of Buddhism. But then at least let 
this be an informed opinion; and for this we need to study Buddhism. 
Forewarned is forearmed \_ we cannot leave an important social development 
such as this to the historians of future ages. Only a thorough understanding 
of how Buddhist philosophy has influenced societies in the past will enable 
us to predict how it may yet influence our own world.\par
}{\plain \f1 \par
}{\plain \f1 A personal anecdote may be apposite here: when my sister was still at high 
school, she attended a meeting in which a locally well known evangelist told 
her that Buddhists worshipped by rubbing the fat stomachs of Buddha statues! 
This shows the enormous extent of ignorance of other faiths in our society. 
Not only is the corpulent statue commonly seen in the west an image of a 
Chinese saint called Pu Tai (Jap. Hotei), and not of the historical Buddha, 
but anyone even slightly familiar with Buddhist philosophy would be aware 
that such behaviour, if in fact it exists anywhere, would be on the same 
level of religious behaviour as a westerner "touching wood"; in other words, 
the level of popular ritual and superstition rather than orthodox 
spirituality. While the evngelist in question is undoubtedly entitled to his 
views, Buddhology could ensure that at least he would be able to base his 
attitude on factually correct information.\par
}{\plain \f1 \par
}{\plain \f1 On a more strictly academic level, one could mention that Buddhist 
philosophy has addressed many of the same questions as other religious and 
philosophical traditions, but starting from often radically different 
starting\_points. This provides us with an unique vantage point from which to 
examine our own beliefs and arguments, and discover the often well\_hidden 
presuppositions, prejudices and apparently self\_evident "facts" on which our 
arguments are so often based.\par
}{\plain \f1 For instance, in the western theistic religious tradition, one problem is 
why there is such a thing as evil in a world created by a loving deity. 
Possible answers to this question are called "theodicies" and it would be 
beyond the scope of this article to describe the history this philosophical 
debate. Buddhists have a similar dilemma, but couched in slightly differing 
terms; "why is there suffering?". Let us briefly look at the ways in which 
the Buddhist paradigm would approach the question.\par
}{\plain \f1 \par
}{\plain \f1 "Is there a problem of evil?" asks Marco Pallis (1980: 31\_51), a 
contemporary Buddhist thinker. He comes to the conclusion that the 
imperfection of the world is an inseparable aspect of its finitude and 
therefore a normal part of phenomenal existence (Pallis 1980: 39\_40). 
Moreover, he points out that in Buddhism no "beginning" or "end" to 
phenomenal existence is posited: thus evil is merely "... a particular case 
of the relative, viewed from its privative angle. Suffering in all its forms 
is then accepted as a measure of the world's remoteness from the divine 
principle" (Pallis 1980: 45\_46). In other words, "evil" is merely our word 
for that aspect of existence which we dislike. And in Buddhist philosophy, 
the fact that we like and dislike demonstrates how far we are from 
enlightenment, thus "(the problem) is neither the existence of the world nor 
our idea of what a world might have been like had we been asked to create 
one, but solely the question of how best to rejoin our own centre, which is 
also the centre of all things ..." (Pallis 1980: 47). In other words, the 
reason for the existence of evil or suffering should not be sought in the 
world's constitution so much as in the way we approach and interact with the 
world: more specifically, it is stated that a grasping, self\_centred 
attitude towards existence will produce suffering.\par
}{\plain \f1 In Buddhist mythology, too, the abstract nature of "evil", as opposed to the 
more immediate, existential nature of "suffering", is symbolised by the tale 
of how it was the very presence of sickness, disease, old age and death that 
prompted prince Siddharta Gautama to set out on the road to his eventual 
Buddhahood. Good, therefore, needed the presence of evil to allow its full 
fruition. This is not seen in the Buddhist tradition as a suggestion that 
the "evil" was somehow an expression of a "higher good", but as a symbolic 
expression of a higher "nirvanic" view of reality which is beyond our 
good/evil system of classification.\par
}{\plain \f1 \par
}{\plain \f1 In the higher reaches of Madhyamika Buddhist philosophy, the distinction 
between good and evil is completely eradicated: samsara is itself nirvana, 
being is emptiness, phenomenon and noumenon are one in all their apparent 
diversity. While nonBuddhist thinkers may have arrived at similar 
conclusions, and some have, the value of seeing Buddhists handle such issues 
lies not so much in the conclusion reached as in the way it demonstrates how 
a different set of initial assumptions change the entire approach to the 
question. The same is true, of course, of oriental scholars now becoming 
aware of the western religio\_philosophical tradition.\par
}{\plain \f1 \par
}{\plain \f1 Let us take a perhaps even more fundamental issue: Buddhists deny the 
existence and relevance of a personal, all\_powerful deity, the very 
life\_blood of western, theistic religion. Yet Buddhists, by general 
consensus, have managed to be religious people. Does this then imply that 
the category "religion" transcends theism, or is there something 
fundamentally wrong with our understanding of what religion is, when we can 
lump such philosophically incompatible phenomena as traditional Christian 
monotheism and near\_nihilistic Buddhist causal interdependency within this 
category? In other words, when we start to define religion, do we not 
already have an mental impression of what religion is, to which we then 
accommodate our definition? The Indian nontheistic religions have been a 
gadfly to those who sought an easy definition of religion ever since the 
founding of Religious studies as an academic discipline towards the end of 
the nineteenth century.\par
}{\plain \f1 \par
}{\plain \f1 By raising such questions, the study of Buddhism can clarify matters in 
sometimes surprisingly remote corners of academia. And that might well 
include theology: Kruger (1989: 98) makes the point that "... a Christian 
theology conceived of in terms of the philosophy of Gotama rather than that 
of Plato, Aristotle or Plotinus is not unthinkable".\par
}{\plain \f1 \par
}{\plain \f1 But of course the same type of argument could be raised to support the study 
of, say, Jainism or the religion of the Inuit. Why Buddhism in particular? 
The answer would appear to be that most of the other religions mentioned are 
too interwoven in a particular set of sociohistorical circumstances to be 
broadly applicable to the outside world. Religions like Hinduism have 
developed a missionary outreach in the last century (e.g. the Ramakrishna 
Mission and the Hare Krishna movement), and other religions like Judaism, 
while rarely proselytising actively, have always been open to converts, but 
only three religious traditions are universal religions, that is, only three 
have from the outset regarded their message as important for all humanity: 
Christianity, Islam and Buddhism (Schmidt 1980: 55\_62).\par
}{\plain \f1 \par
}{\plain \f1 Accordingly, only these three have developed their philosophical and 
theological theses, arguments and positions in a way that allows a 
relatively easy transition to other, very different cultures. When I say 
"easy" I do not imply that we do not require a sophisticated hermeneutical 
strategy to understand the transition; to the contrary, I merely mean that, 
by and large, only these three traditions have "designed" their doctrines to 
be understandable to outsiders who are unfamiliar with a thousand details 
from everyday life. Other religious traditions, venerable and instructive 
though they might be, are simply too closely involved with the experience of 
a particular group of people to be readily assimilated into the universe of 
general academic discourse.\par
}{\plain \f1 \par
}{\plain \f1 But the "family resemblance" between Islam and Christianity, at least as 
seen from the Buddhist perspective, is sufficiently great to enable us to 
see them as variants of one religio\_philosophical tradition for the purpose 
of macro\_cultural information interchange and comparison (cf. Scharfstein 
1978: 49\_52). And perhaps that by itself is an indication of how attention 
to the Buddhist paradigm can demonstrate our intellectual blind spots. That 
leaves us with two great religious systems of thought, Buddhism and 
occidental theism, here represented by Christianity, but what about 
nonreligious thinking?\par
}{\plain \f1 \par
}{\plain \f1 In 1920, H. G. Wells co\_authored a series of essays on the "six greatest men 
of all time" (described in Wells 1970: 209). They were, in no particular 
order, Jesus, Aristotle, Asoka, Roger Bacon, Abraham Lincoln and the Buddha. 
If we see Aristotle and Lincoln as standing at the very beginning of the 
western liberal and scientific tradition (of which Marxism too is an 
offshoot), the Buddha and Asoka (a Buddhist monarch famous for his clemency 
and wise administration) as representing Buddhism and Christ and Bacon as 
the Christian representatives, then this leaves us with three great 
paradigms or systems of thought; Buddhism, Christianity and science. And 
this is yet another reason to study Buddhism: being a religious tradition 
that takes all truth\_claims with a generous pinch of salt, it may yet serve 
as a mediating factor between the conflicting claims of the other two 
traditions. If Buddhism, and the study of Buddhism, can serve as an honest 
broker, if it can allay the fruitless war between faith and reason that has 
so severely split western society for well over a century, then perhaps the 
study of Buddhism is the best possible investment we can make in our own 
future.\par
}{\plain \f1 \par
}{\plain \f1 Those, then, are some of the reasons for studying Buddhism. As intimated 
above, to these very pragmatic reasons must always be added the value and 
sheer joy of gathering knowledge purely for its own sake. The final 
relevance of Buddhist studies will be for history to decide, but I hope that 
I have demonstrated that from our perspective Buddhology, apart from its 
intrinsic fascination, is more than a mere intellectual luxury. Even in the 
absence of a substantial Buddhist community, it helps us understand other 
societies whose importance in the global economy is increasingly rising, it 
gives us valuable information about contemporary changes in our own society, 
and it serves as a critical tool for nonBuddhist thinkers that can enhance 
academic discourse as a whole. A nonsectarian university such as Unisa is 
then particularly well suited to take advantage of these benefits of 
academic Buddhology.\par
}{\plain \f1 \par
}{\plain \f1 REFERENCES\par
}{\plain \f1 Gous, A. 1983. Perspektief op Satan en sy werkinge \_ joga, transendentale 
meditasie, karate. Pretoria: N. G. Kerkboekhandel.\par
}{\plain \f1 \par
}{\plain \f1 Kruger, J. S. 1989. Metatheism. Early Buddhism and traditional Christian 
theism. Pretoria: University of South Africa.\par
}{\plain \f1 \par
}{\plain \f1 Musashi, M. 1982. A book of three rings. (trl. V. Harris). London: Allison & 
Busby.\par
}{\plain \f1 \par
}{\plain \f1 Nederduits Gereformeerde Kerk 1983. Agenda vir die negende gewone 
vergadering van die sinode van Noord\_Transvaal van die Nederduitse 
Gereformeerde Kerk. Pretoria: Nederduits Gereformeerde Kerk.\par
}{\plain \f1 \par
}{\plain \f1 Pallis, M. 1980. A Buddhist spectrum. London: George Allen & Unwin.\par
}{\plain \f1 \par
}{\plain \f1 Scharfstein, B. 1978. Philosophy East/Philosophy West. New York: Oxford 
University Press.\par
}{\plain \f1 \par
}{\plain \f1 Schmidt, R. 1980. Exploring religion. Belmont, Cal.: Wadsworth.\par
}{\plain \f1 \par
}{\plain \f1 Standen, R. 1987. The changing face of the hero. Wheaton, Ill.: Theosophical 
Publishing House.\par
}{\plain \f1 \par
}{\plain \f1 Wells, G. H. 1970. The works of H. G. Wells. New York: Burt Franklin.\par
}{\plain \f1 \par
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