Abstract
This article explores potential links between Buddhism and sociology, highlighting the many commonalities between sociology and Buddhism, with an emphasis on ways that Buddhist thought and practice may contribute to the field of sociology. What could Buddhism offer to our understanding of social institutions, social problems, and to the dynamics and possibilities for social change? The Four Noble Truths, central to Buddhist teachings, are explored in reference to their sociological theory applications. Finally, mindfulness practices that are endemic to Buddhism are explored as tools for sociologists to consider as they work reflexively, develop sociological insights, and pursue social justice.
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Notes
This sounds similar to phenomenology with its emphasis on the study of conscious experience and also echoes Kantian thought that certain principles exist at which we can arrive through reason. Yet the Buddha’s focus on direct experience emphasized a type of embodied knowing that phenomenology does not address—that it is through mindfulness practices that engage the body, emotions, and mind, that truth can be known and liberation from suffering realized. Further, Buddhism perceives emotions, thoughts, and bodily sensations as one integrated whole. Reason is a faculty of mind to be put to use (so as not to uncritically accept beliefs), but is not an end in itself. Reason is simply one state of mind subject to careful observation.
The Complexity of the Buddhist Canon
The Buddhist Canon is extensive and complex. It is believed that the Buddha’s 45 years of teachings were memorized during his lifetime and consistently rehearsed upon his death by a cohesive group of his students. For several 100 years, generations continued to pass down the oral teachings of the Buddha until they were recorded in Pali (a regional language in India) during the Fourth Buddhist Council in Sri Lanka in 29 B.C., approximately 450 years after the historical Buddha’s death. By the first century B.C., there existed approximately 18 schools of Buddhist thought. As Buddhist teachings began to spread to various parts of India, Asia, and ultimately the world, different translations from Sanskrit (the religious and classical literary language of India) and Pali Buddhist texts have added further complexity to the teachings. Today, three main schools of Buddhism—Theravada (based on Pali Canon and commentaries), Mahayana (such as Zen, based on commentaries focused on freedom from suffering for all beings), and Vajrayana Buddhism (Tibetan Buddhism)—comprise the majority of Buddhist schools throughout the world. Together, we may consider as the Buddhist Canon this vast body of teachings and extensive assemblage of commentaries.
Vipassana, based on the ancient Pali teachings of the Theravada school, came to the United States by way of Sri Lanka and the Thai Forest traditions of Northern Thailand. After studying with Vipassana masters in Asia in the early 1970s, American students—including Joseph Goldstein, Jack Kornfield, and Sharon Salzberg—established the Insight Meditation Society, a meditation center near Barre, Massachusetts. Since then, from many other meditation centers established in the United States—most notably Spirit Rock, located in Marin County, California—powerful collections of teachings, called dharma talks have emerged.
More examples of how different schools of sociology take suffering as their central concern: W. E. B. Du Bois’s focus on the “race idea,” “color line,” and “veil” highlighted the afflicted state of race relations in the United States. The recognition of suffering based on oppressive systems of power permeates the work of sociologists of race and ethnic studies (e.g. bell hooks, Patricia Hill Collins) feminist scholars and activists (e.g. Betty Friedan, Sojourner Truth), and queer theorists (e.g. Michael Warner, Adrienne Rich). Structural functional theorists (e.g. Talcott Parsons, Robert K. Merton), critical sociologists (e.g. Max Horkheimer, Theodor Adorno), and Poststructuralists (Michel Foucault, Pierre Bourdeiu) have theorized on the inequities and violence that appear built into the very fabric of modern social systems. Progressive Era sociologists (e.g. Jane Addams, Edward Ross) focused their attention and activism on alleviating poverty. Going beyond mere academic considerations of poverty, Addams and the women of Hull House in conjunction with the applied sociologists of the Chicago School created community programs and engaged in efforts to directly ameliorate the suffering created by homelessness, poverty, inequity in labor laws, and so forth.
Involved in political action throughout the world, Engaged Buddhists in 2011 participated in such actions as: “Occupy the Present Moment”—standing in solidarity with the Occupy protests throughout the United States and Canada and highlighting the importance of interconnection, ending suffering by challenging systems of inequality, use of nonviolent tactics including bearing witness and compassionate presence to be the change they wish to see, standing in solidarity with all beings (Buddhist Peace Fellowship 2011). Other activities by engaged Buddhists in 2011 include (but are not limited to) prison hunger strikes against torture and violence in prisons; Sacred Sites Peace Walk for a Nuclear Free World (San Luis Obispo, CA); Universal Peace March (Jaipur, India); Worldwide Walk of Compassion to Feed the Hungry (main event in New York City); September 11: Hands Across the Golden Gate Bridge, peace demonstration; Bearing Witness Retreat in Rwanda (See the Jizo Chronicles for a comprehensive listing of engaged Buddhist activities).
Social theorists like Marcuse (1987) and Fromm (1994) have observed the way in which repressed fears influence culture and social institutions. Yet Western social thinkers tend to identify the problem first (e.g. repression, fear) and then observe how it plays itself out in the society. A Buddhist Sociology suggests a more open-ended approach by, as with reflexivity, making direct observations of the mind itself and observing the relationship between internal mind structures and external social structures.
For example, The Center for Contemplative Mind in Society lists the following events, to take place in the United States, for educators and professionals: Meditation Retreat for Law Professionals, Cultivating the Executive Mind: Is Mindfulness the Key to 21st Century Economic Survival?; Creating a Mindful Society, Mindfulness in Education: A foundation for teaching and learning; Writing and the Contemplative Mind Conference, Annual Association for Contemplative Mind in Higher Education Conference; Contemplative Retreat for Educators; International Symposia for Contemplative Studies.
For example: The Association for Mindfulness in Education, The Brown University Contemplative Studies Initiative, Education as Transformation, The Center for Contemplative Mind in Society, The Metro-Area Research Group on Meditation and Awareness (MARGAM), Mindfulness in Education Network, Minding Your Life, Mind & Life Institute, Naropa University, Teaching to Connect the Heart and Mind, U. of Michigan Program in Creativity and Consciousness Studies.
Applying Buddhist principles to a Western academic discipline is not new. Here, I convey just two examples. In 1948, Carl Jung recognized psychotherapeutic goals as similar to satori, the enlightenment experience of Zen practitioners. In 1957 psychoanalysts and Zen practitioners participated in a workshop, “Zen Buddhism and Psychoanalysis,” in Cuernavaca, Mexico. At this workshop, Fromm et al. (1960) noted that the majority of psychoanalytic patients of the twentieth century suffered from an “inner deadness”; he highlighted Zen as a practice that could “throw new light on the nature of insight” and help overcome “false intellectualizations” based on the “subject-object split”. Buddhist Psychology became popularized through the writings of Watts (1961), Kornfield (1993), and Nhat Hanh (1998). Epstein (1995, 1998) wrote deftly and accessibly by relating Buddhist perspectives to psychotherapeutic practice. Academic social psychologist Langer (1989) conducted an array of experiments that revealed a missing mindfulness in everyday life. Three United States clinical practices have integrated Buddhist approaches: Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (Jon Kabat-Zinn), Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (Marsha Linehan), and Cognitive Restructuring. Additionally, Naropa University, founded in 1975 in Boulder, Colorado, and credited as the first Buddhist-inspired university, offers degrees in contemplative psychology and other contemplative arts.
Buddhist Economics, a term coined by E. F. Schumacher in 1955, applies Buddhist principles to economic theory. The main premise of Buddhist Economics is that work and lifestyle should support human development while minimizing environmental impacts. These ideas, articulated in Schumacher’s (1973, 1999) now classic, Small is Beautiful, and adopted by the Bhutan government in order to measure “Gross National Happiness,” establishes a metric for the quality of life that is not included in traditional economic indicators.
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Acknowledgments
I wish to thank Dr. Maury Stein and Dr. Charlie Fisher for first introducing me to mindfulness practices during an undergraduate class at Brandeis University in 1990. Thank you also to Brandeis professor Peter Conrad for helping me to find the right home for these ideas. Dr. Karla Hackstaff’s encouragement and interest in Buddhist Sociology provided necessary encouragement as I began the process of getting over 20 years of ideas into writing. Many thanks to Larry Nichols for his extensive feedback to help strengthen the paper. I feel indebted to Northern Arizona University’s Department of Sociology and Social Work for providing an environment of support and openness as I pursued these non-traditional sociological themes. Finally, several read and commented on this manuscript, helping me to fine tune it. Thanks go to Eliot Schipper, Eve Paludan, Shawn Bingham, and Ben Brucato.
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Schipper, J. Toward a Buddhist Sociology: Theories, Methods, and Possibilities. Am Soc 43, 203–222 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12108-012-9155-4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12108-012-9155-4