Between the Night-Stand and Institutional Religion
by Danny Fisher
Nacho over at the Woodmoor Village Zendo brings our attention to a recent and strong piece by University of Iowa Ph.D. candidate Dustin Eaton at On Faith this week. Eaton writes from a kind of twilight stage between “night-stand Buddhist” and affirmed practitioner.
“Night-stand Buddhists” are also called “sympathizers.” Or “Skeptical Buddhists.” “Unaffiliated Buddhists” and “Bookstore Buddhists” too. Basically, these are individuals who might meditate or read a lot of dharma books, but do not to make a formal commitment to a particular Buddhist tradition or institution for whatever reason.
Often unfairly marginalized as “tourists” or otherwise unserious, these individuals generally have good questions and legitimate concerns about religious commitment in my experience. (Questions and concerns anyone at any level of practice would do well to spend some time reflecting on at some point.) Eaton exemplifies this. He writes:
- Today, I am a graduate student at the University of Iowa, studying the religion and culture of South Asia. I am on the board of directors at the local Zen Center and have spent a few weekends doing all-day zazen. I recently acted as a teaching assistant for a class called Living Religions of the East, and although I love teaching about Hindu, Taoist and Confucian traditions, I love learning about Buddhism. I am becoming–carefully and with as much mindfulness as I can muster–more than what has been dismissively labeled a “bookstore Buddhist.” To me, being a Buddhist means more than just saying you are one. It means placing yourself within the structure of a particular school, a particular lineage and a particular teacher. It means changing your life, not just changing your mind. Since I live in Iowa City and there is no school, lineage or teacher, I am technically not a Buddhist.
On the other hand…
At least once a day I descend the stairs to my basement, bow towards my zabuton and turn clockwise. I bow to the world and then lower myself onto a round black cushion. I light a small tea-light and bow to the Nepali Buddha statue that I bought in Madison. I take refuge in the three jewels. I ring a Tibetan singing bowl three times. I place my hands in the mudra of Vairocana Buddha.
I sit.
I think non-thinking.
As Nacho rightly points out, Eaton’s piece raises interesting notions about identity, commitment, affiliation, and so on. At any rate, it got me thinking about these things and my own path as a practitioner.
I myself was a night-stand Buddhist of sorts for a long time. I took refuge and bodhisattva vows as an undergraduate travelling in India, but struggled for some years afterward with committing formally to a teacher or tradition. There are a lot of reasons for this. I connected deeply early on with a teacher who died suddenly. Also, like anybody else, I’ve got my little neuroses and issues that affect my ability to “dive in” sometimes. And although I don’t consider myself a religious studies scholar per se (my training has been mostly normative), I’m enough of one that I have reservations about getting involved with religious institutions based on different things I’ve learned and certain crtical observations I’ve made over the years.
At this moment in my life, though, my path has become a bit more formal. This is partly out of necessity (to be certified with most professional chaplaincy organizations, I will need to be ordained in some tradition), but certain things have also just shifted in my life too. Today I’m a member of and certified mindfulness meditation instructor with Shambhala International. At the same time, I’m pursuing possible ordination as a Buddhist minister with an ecumenical Buddhist organization that has strong roots in the Theravāda traditions of Sri Lanka and Thailand (more on this in the future, I hope).
But while things have evolved for me toward something more formal, I, like Nacho, prefer “the notion that folks need not assume a ‘religious’ identity in order to follow an ethical path.” Whether you’re a “night-stand Buddhist” or a full-on practitioner in one of the many Buddhist traditions doesn’t really matter; anybody, irregardless of label or affiliation (or lack thereof), can be a good person. As His Holiness the Dalai Lama has said:
- There is no need for temples, no need for complicated philosophies. My brain and my heart are my temples; my philosophy is kindness.
I will also point out that many Buddhists in the US may not have the choice to be anything other than a ‘night-stand’ Buddhist. I live near a major city, but there is not a single Zen sangha, teacher, etc for at least a five hour drive in any direction. There are exactly three places for other Buddhist traditions, but I didn’t feel that I particularly connected with any of them.
I am not a ‘bookstore Buddhist’, a ‘nightstand Buddhist’ or an institutional Buddhist. If I am a Buddhist at all, I am a zafu Buddhist!
I am very suspicious of institutional religion. One needs only look at the atrocities which were condoned by the Japanese Soto and Rinzai Zen schools during World War II. Brian Victoria’s book Zen at War is indispensable here.
Dustin mentions teachers and lineages, but here, once again, we should be suspicious. Geoffrey D. Faulk’s Stripping the Gurus (available to read for free at http://www.strippingthegurus.com/) is a disturbing example of the terrible things that supposedly enlightened figures have got up to. Sadly, that includes Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche, founder of Shambhala. While Trungpa was no doubt an incredible man in many respects, his ‘crazy wisdom’ was often disrespectful, even abusive, to his students.
Add to these obstacles the worrisome problem of belief – in difficult to prove doctrines, such as karma, rebirth and luminous mind – and the appeal of being an institutional Buddhist diminishes.
One of my favourite spiritual writers, Simone Weil, remained outside of the Catholic Church all her life, despite being a devoted Christian. Weil said she could not bring herself to be baptized: there was too much nationalism in the church, too closely linked to the Nazi government (much like the Buddhist establishment in Japan). She also cited intellectual obstacles to joining.
In Weil’s spirit, I cannot call myself a Buddhist without a great deal of apprehension. But still, I sit, at least once a day, on my zafu, just like Justin does. Perhaps one day I will call myself a Buddhist proper. But not yet.
Eileen: Thank you for raising that excellent point. I intended the “for whatever reason” part of my definition of night-stand Buddhism to include this as one of many possible reasons. While I lived in rural Indiana, I had the same trouble.
Andy W: I suspect the path is somewhere between absolute embrace and absolute rejection. A middle path, if you will. ; )