Buddhism has a growing visibility in mainstream Australia. Tibetan prayer flags fly from many porches across the inner-city, Bunning's Warehouse sells Buddha statues and water-features and Big W sells paintings of the Buddha.
While there is a real and growing presence of Buddhism among white Australians, much of the growth of Buddhist paraphernalia isn't from genuine followers. Instead, Buddhism has been widely appropriated and pacified by a broader audience in a manner which fits broadly in the context of Orientalism.
Unlike some other religions from the East, Buddhism is highly romanticised in Western eyes. Much of this romanticism comes from the over simplified perceptions of the religion and an infantilised view of its beliefs. This all comes with a general disinterest in learning any of the actual teachings of the Buddha, Siddhartha Gotama Sakyamuni.
Many in the West often try to understand Buddhism through the eyes of European science and philosophy. There is a concerted effort to make the Dhamma (the teachings of the Buddha) completely compatible with modern Western thinking and disregard for the supernatural. While many aspects of Buddhism are compatible with Western philosophy, trying to understand all aspects of the Dhamma through these notions requires a high level of selectivity and misrepresentation.
Buddhism is vastly complicated religion, comprising of hundreds of schools of thought that fall under the two main schools of Mahayanna and Theravada. Many different founding texts are used by the different schools and the Suttas (the earliest recordings of the Buddha's life) alone compiled together are enough to fill a small book-shelf. Despite the many deep complexities of Buddhism there is a tendency for people to think they have an understanding of the religion from a single meme or a Dalai Lama coffee-table book.
His Holiness, the fourteenth Dali Lama is undoubtedly the face of Buddhism in much of the world, and while he is widely revered figure by all Buddhist there is a lack of understanding in the west that he only leads Tibetan Buddhists. The Dalai Lama, along with other Buddhist teachers, have actively sought to engage Westerners in Buddhism through the lens of Western philosophy and there is a direct comparison that can be draw here to the Buddha's own life.
The Suttas record many of the same teachings taught by the Buddha in different ways, with different levels of complexity as he adapts the way he teaches to his audience. When talking to educated rulers he would use intellectual language; when speaking to farmers he would often use simple similes to everyday agricultural practices. Teaching Buddhism by drawing comparisons to Western philosophy can be seen in this light, as a vessel to understanding some aspects of the Dhamma.
That being said, there is absolutely nothing wrong with engaging with Buddhism through Western philosophy. As Buddhism grows in the West, it is natural that the initial points of contact will be through the pre-socialised systems of reasoning. More and more Westerns are engaging in Buddhism through online resources and Vipassana meditation centres often serve as an introduction to meditation. Temples and monasteries are springing up and serving both Asian migrant communities and Western followers alike.
It is most welcome that so many people are finding the teachings of the Buddha relevant and helpful to their own lives, and meditation is a big part of that. However, there is a concerted effort to remove meditation from its religious context as a Buddhist practice and ignore the teachings that are intended to accompany it.
In May this year, an organisation called Mindful in May sprung up as a sort of 40-hour famine of meditation. They encouraged everyone to meditate every-day for a month while raising money for international charity. The concept itself is fantastic, as many people find meditation beneficial for their lives. However, the way the organisation went out promoting it was in line with the broader trend to remove the religion and pacify the practice for a Western audience.
Instead of getting Buddhist monks to promote the project, they got an array of Western scientists and academics to testify that the benefits of meditation have been proven "real" according to Western science (in case you thought monks have been practicing it for 2500 years for no reason). The video advertisement also featured people receiving the type of halo Gotama is often depicted post-enlightenment, the minute they sit down to meditate.
Mindful in May is symbolic of the broader appropriation of meditation and only giving it validation through Western science. Vipassana meditation is re-named "insight or mindful meditation" and Anapana meditation is renamed "breathing meditation." Meditation is quickly heading down the track of Yoga, which has become so far removed from its Hinduism roots many people in Australia probably wouldn't even know its religious tradition.
Ajahn Brahmavamso, a well-known British Theravada monk based in Perth, illustrates the importance of mindfulness being accompanied by the Buddhist Triple-Gem foundations of Sila (morality), Samadhi (concentration/peace of mind) and Panna (wisdom), as similar to a cat that stalks with the intention to kill. While the cat is poised with mindfulness, it is without right intention.
Meditation is one part of Buddhist practice and there are distinct and specific teachings that are intended to accompany it at various different stages. Meditation shouldn't be limited to Buddhism, but it's important to acknowledge where it comes from and its traditions. If removed without this acknowledgement, Buddhism simply joins the long line of things taken by white-people from people of their former colonial empires and claimed as their own.
Central to the appropriation in the West is the way Buddhism is tokenised and not treated as a legitimate religion. Tibetan prayer flags are flown without any understanding or consideration of their religious meaning. Buddha statues are cute totems for middle-class "progressives." In Melbourne a bar run by white non-Buddhists called Asian Beer Cafe features Buddha themed rooms to drink in. Popular inner-city Asian clothes and furniture chain Ishka offer you "karma cards" as a loyalty program.
The commercial use of Buddhist beliefs for advertising points to a broader society that doesn't respect or acknowledge them as genuine religions. Buying Buddhist statues and art should be something done by those with a genuine interest in Buddhism or else it's just collecting infantilised things from the "Orient."
At the end of the day Buddhism is a religious tradition that dates back more than 2500 years and not a fad or something you "discovered" on your holiday to Thailand. And while easily accessible teachers - such as some of the works of the Dalai Lama - should be welcomed and celebrated, it's important to remember that you don't know everything there is to know about Buddhism from reading one book of quotes. There's a point at which "appreciation" mutates into "appropriation" - and it's a line we should all be weary of.
Jarni Blakkarly is a Melbourne-based free-lance journalist and a journalism student at RMIT. He is the Politics and Arts Editor at Asian-Australian publication Peril Magazine and correspondent for Tokyo-based The Diplomat. He is predominantly a follower of Theravada Buddhism. For more on common misperceptions of Buddhism in Western culture, you can also listen to the recent RN Encounter program, "Instant Karma's gonna get you."