Can Westerners respectfully engage with Buddhism?
Western Buddhists have been criticised for distorting centuries old traditions and doctrines. Is there a way that they could engage more respectfully?
Over the last few centuries the beliefs, practises and philosophies of Buddhism have slowly permeated the Western world. Settling on a precise point of origin can be difficult, but we know that the German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer undertook serious study of Buddhism as early as 1815. The degree to which this influenced his philosophy is still the subject of debate, but his interest lives on in the work of Friedrich Nietzsche — perhaps the most important philosopher of the last few centuries — who described Buddhism as “a hundred times more realistic than Christianity”.
Westerners engaging with Buddhism need to be acutely aware of the problems of dislocating Eastern philosophies. When the worldviews of vastly different cultures collide — as in, say, Western scientific materialism and Tibetan Mahayana Buddhism — a great deal of translation, interpretation and omission takes place. This is in part because Tibetan Buddhism draws not only from Indian-Sanskrit texts, but also draws on aspects of Indian and Tibetan tantra, Tibetan traditional medicine, and the shamanic, pre-Buddhist…
