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Buddhism and Africa

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Buddhism and Africa


Edited by

M Clasquin and J S Krüger


Pretoria University of South Africa


Published by Unisa Press



CONTENTS

Buddhism in Africa: some strategic issues
Kobus Krüger 1

The Buddha of suburbia: a nineteenth-century South African imagining
Darrel Wratten 13

Buddhism in South Africa: its past history, present status and likely future
Louis Van Loon 31

Zen and the Art of Living
Heila Downey JDPSN 45

Fo Kuang Shan in Africa: heritage and future plans
Master Hui Li 55

The Kagyu Lineage Tree: its branches in Southern Africa (a personal view)
Hugh Laue 67

The Role of Buddhist Groups in South Africa
Alison Smith 77

African religion and the Africanisation of Religions - a panel discussion
Georgina Hamilton & Danile Busakwe
85

African Buddhists? Some issues in Buddhist transmission across cultures
Raoul Birnbaum
93

Ubuntu Dharma - Buddhism and African thought
Michel Clasquin 111

POSTSCRIPT 124

SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY: SOUTH AFRICAN WORKS ON BUDDHISM 125

INDEX 131

 
ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Prof Raoul Birnbaum lectures in the Department of Visual Culture at the University of California (Santa Cruz). His interest in Buddhist art and architecture regularly takes him to mainland China.
Mr Danile Busakwe was, at the time of the conference, an academic assistant in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of South Africa and has since accepted a government post in the Department of Land Affairs. He has a special interest in African religion(s) and their continuing relevance in contemporary African society.
Mr Michel Clasquin lectures in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of South Africa. He has been involved in South African Buddhism since 1984.
Heila Downey JDPSN, together with her husband Rodney, started the Dharma Centre in Somerset West in the early 1980s, when she was a student of Philip Kapleau Roshi. She is now a Master Dharma Teacher of the Kwan Um school of Zen, the first from Africa, and teaches kong-an practice worldwide. She now resides in the Poep Kwang Sa Dharma Centre in Robertson.
Ms Georgina Hamilton studied African religion at the School of Oriental and African Studies at London University. She works as assistant to the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Natal.
Master Hui Li is the founder of and driving force behind the establishment of the Fo Kuang Shan monastery and African Buddhist College in Bronkhorstspruit.
Prof JS (Kobus) Krüger lectures in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of South Africa. He is the author of several books and articles on Buddhism, including some of the very few that have been written in Afrikaans.
Dr Hugh Laue is a consultant in Industrial Chemical Research and took refuge as a Tibetan Buddhist in 1978. He has regularly acted as spokesperson for Kagyu Africa at academic conferences at Unisa and elsewhere.
Ms Alison Smith is the founder of long-lived and successful Buddhist groups in Pretoria and Cape Town.
Mr Louis Van Loon established the Buddhist Retreat Centre in 1980. He is a consulting civil and structural engineer in Durban and has lectured in Buddhist philosophy at the universities of Cape Town and Durban-Westville.
Dr Darrel Wratten, at the time of the conference, lectured in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of Cape Town and has since started an independent consulting service. His PhD on the history of South African Buddhism has become a standard reference work on the subject.

There were other participants at the conference whose contributions could, for one reason or another, not be included in these proceedings. In this context, we should like to thank the Ven-erable Dhammarakkhita (Dhammodaya Myanmar Vihara of SA), Kittisaro (Buddhist Retreat Centre) and Mr Tashi Phuntsok (SA representative of HH the Dalai Lama) for their varied and valuable contributions.
 



ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The editors would like to acknowledge the following people. Without them, this book could never have come into being:

All the contributors and attendees, for coming to our conference sometimes at great cost and inconvenience to themselves.

Thea Eicker, for transcribing those presentations that were delivered impromptu or that were for other reasons not available in writing.

Our colleagues in the Department of Religious Studies, for putting up all these years with our obsession with Buddhism when we could have been working with traditions far more common in South Africa.

Michel Clasquin
Kobus Krüger
 

 
INTRODUCTION


This volume formally consists of the edited proceedings of a conference on "Buddhism and Africa" organised by the Department of Religious Studies at the University of South Africa and held in Pretoria in June 1998. It is also more than that: it is a snapshot of a minority religion at a time when its host society is in transition. In what one is almost tempted to term an un-Buddhist fashion, it freezes a moment in time and space and shows how South African Buddhists and Buddhologists see the position of Buddhism in African, and more specifically South African, socie-ty. All but one contributors are involved with South African Buddhism in one way or another. All but one (and not the same one) are, regardless of institutional affiliation or the lack of any, practising Buddhists. Among them are scholars of Buddhism, monks and ex-monks, long-serving leaders of Buddhist organisations, spiritual teachers and advisers, and ordinary rank-and-file Buddhists grappling with some crucial questions.
How did Buddhism arrive in South Africa? Who brought it? Or perhaps rather, who fetched it? What kinds of Buddhism are practised here and how do the various groups relate to one an-other? How do Buddhist groups function? Is there a future for Buddhism in Africa and if so, can we expect any truly indigenous form(s) of the tradition, a real African Buddhism, to arise? It was to these questions that we turned at the conference.
We arrived at no final answer. Indeed, there can be no final answers to such questions. Buddhism is always true to its own teachings of impermanence, insubstantiali¬ty and emptiness. No sooner do we think we have captured its essence than it slips the net of words we have fruitlessly tried to weave around it. No doubt the past of African Buddhism remains largely hidden from view, despite the best efforts of historians. Even today, practitioners and scholars alike are regularly confronted with the existence of Buddhist groups and organisations whose existence have long been hidden from the awareness of others. The future of African Buddhism will most likely be very different from what we now think it will be. No fixed points of reference, no indubita-ble outcome. "Spring comes, and the grass grows by itself".
But all such considerations apart, we do believe that the reader will find in this volume a wealth of information, insights and views. Even if we cannot predict the future of African Bud-dhism, those who come after us may yet be able to understand their heritage better when they see where they have sprung from. It is to them, our readers in the distant future, that we dedicate this book. After all, among them might be our own future reincarnations!

The editors
August 24, 2020

 
 
Buddhism in Africa some strategic issues Kobus Krüger, University of South Africa


 
The setting

The purpose of this consultation/conference is to take stock of Buddhism in South Africa, against the wider backdrop of Buddhism in Africa. In this introductory paper, I shall mainly deal with Buddhism in South Africa, because of my lack of knowledge and experience of Buddhism in other parts of Africa. Perhaps the upgrading of networking and mutual support between Bud-dhists in various parts of Africa could be put on the agenda for the future.
In the recent past conferences of a similar nature took place elsewhere in the world, for example at Harvard University, in May 1997, under the topic "Buddhism in America", and in Aus-tralia, in September 1997, on "Buddhism in Australia". At the time when you were invited to this consultation, we were unaware of those initiatives. As far as I know, it is the first time that pro-fessing Buddhists (including both monks and laity) and scholars of Buddhism will be meeting in South Africa, or in Africa for that matter, to discuss the present and future of Buddhism on this continent. Not that these two categories ("Buddhists" and "Buddhologists") are mutually exclusive: Buddhism itself, as is widely recognised, has a deep inner affinity with the scholarly enter-prise, and, on the other hand, no sound scholarly understanding of Buddhism is possible without serious immersion in the Buddhist cause and experience.
Seen in the larger context both of Buddhism as a world religion and of Africa as a continent, this conference takes place at a crucial time, and may turn out to be an event of no mean his-torical significance.
As far as Buddhism is concerned, the twentieth century saw its fortunes decline in some parts of Asia, for example in Tibet and mainland China; in the West, on the other hand, it grew dra-matically. In Africa it is numerically very small indeed, as will become apparent as our speakers present their papers. There, are, however, significant signs of potential development on this con-tinent. If the twentieth century was the century of Buddhism in the West, will the twenty first century perhaps turn out to be the century of Buddhism in Africa - the last continent where the wheel of the dharma has been set in motion? Of course, in a sense the history of Buddhism in Africa (that is, northern Africa, especially Egypt) goes back at least two thousand years, but there it disappeared a long time ago. On the other hand, as Darrel Wratten tells us, Buddhism first made an imprint on southern African soil when a few Thai monks, shipwrecked on the southern Cape coast, trekked to Cape Town in an epic journey in the seventeenth century. Since then, its growth, and its overall impact on society, was small to moderate. Whatever way we look at it, at present Buddhism in Africa is still in its infancy. What is its future?
As far as the African socio-cultural-religious context is concerned, time will not permit an extensive analysis of prevailing trends. However, allow me to highlight a few crucial aspects. In South Africa itself, apartheid, the last of the colonial systems, has finally come to an end. On the positive side, a great future (an " African renaissance") is not impossible. On the negative side, African societies are racked by violence; there is an appalling lack of education and of the skills required in the contemporary world; poverty, malnutrition and disease (especially AIDS) are rife; and at least South Africa is in dire need of the kind of moral lead that only radical religious reflection can provide.
In terms of its cultural spectrum, South African society (to limit myself to this one for the moment) is largely spread over a continuum stretching from traditionally African to traditionally European, with all shades of cultural mix in between, and crossed diagonally by smaller continua such as the one starting from traditionally Indian and blending with the larger one. In spite of the process of cultural homogenisation that might be taking place in South African society (but that is not the only process!) there remain very significant cultural differences in that society that must be taken into account - obviously, without falling into apartheid thinking. For example, at least up till now, Buddhism has taken root only among middle-class whites. Then an important distinction must also be drawn between local Buddhists (from whatever cultural group) and immigrant Buddhist communities from various Asian countries. Let me add that to my knowledge no demographical research into the various types of Buddhist communities in this country has been done.
In terms of its social structure, this society presents itself as a pyramid, with whites and Asians mainly occupying the middle and upper classes, and with blacks and coloureds forming mainly the bulk, yet with increasing numbers of Africans occupying various levels in the richer and more powerful strata. This has important implications for Buddhism, in that up till now it found its adherents almost exclusively from among the white middle class. At present there is, as far as I know, one ambitious effort directed specifically at black Africans (the Fo Kuang-Shan establishment at Bronkhorstspruit). Which Africans might turn out to be more interested in and receptive of the dharma: the emerging middle class, or the masses of blacks from the rural and urban areas? This certainly calls for a considerable degree of insight into African realities (relying on religious studies, anthropology, sociology and psychology), the dynamics of religious trans-fer, and Buddhist hermeneutics (relying on Buddhist thought through the millennia).
In terms of religious composition, the groundswell of sub-Saharan African religiosity remains African (traditional) religion with its centre in the veneration of the ancestors. Whereas in northern Africa Islam and Christianity vie for the loyalty of people and are roughly (obviously with differential representation in various countries) of equal strength, in sub-Saharan Africa Christianity is the dominant religion, with others, such as Islam, Hinduism and Judaism existing as small minorities. I could not obtain statistics for Buddhism in this region, or for Africa as a whole for that matter. For South Africa, the official census of 1994 gives a total of 2 391 adherents (including the highly unlikely figure of 540 Black Buddhists), that is, 0,008% of the South African population.

"Buddhism": transcendent experience
 and socio-cultural embodiment

Since its inception two and a half thousand years ago, the way of mental purification that would eventually become known as "Buddhism" in the nineteenth century West, was truly protean in the proliferation of forms it developed. This was the case to such an extent that the term "Buddhism" is by no means univocal. There are at least three views as to what the "essence" of Bud-dhism might be (Pye and Morgan, 1973): firstly, some Buddhists and students of Buddhism lean heavily on the early phase of the religion as the most authentic, most normative; secondly, some would apply the term in an inclusive sense to the sum of its entire development; and thirdly, others would use it to denote the set of ideas and practices which form the largest common denomi-nator peculiar to Buddhism. Whatever view we may prefer, certainly no one would doubt that Buddhism is not an a-historical phenomenon, but a living entity. For the purposes of my paper, I would want to see the most central notion, the most central experience of Buddhism, its "absolute" or "ultimate truth" to be the one approximated by terms such as anatta and anicca, sunyata and pra¬titya¬samut¬pada, and pictured mentally as the net of Indra: there are no timeless, self-sufficient substances, only the throb of the vast nexus of mutually inherent nodes, intuited as our words implode into silence.
Yet, not only philosophically, but also historically, Buddhism did not sever the link with ordinary life and with conventional speech. Throughout its history, it sought and found social and cultural embodiment as it moved through India and into Sri Lanka, South-East Asia, Tibet, China, Japan, Korea and, since the previous century, the West. The Buddha re-entered the world, or-ganised a sangha, taught a doctrine. On its long journey through space and time, Buddhism sought to speak the unspeakable (in its philosophy, teaching and training), organise the unorganisable (in its social forms, structure and governance), and figure the unfigurable (in its ritual, ethos and art). So the three strategic issues around which I wish to build the rest of my paper, focussing sharply on Buddhism in Africa, are (broadly speaking) the intellectual, the organisational, and the ritual expression of the core Buddhist intuition of transcendent emptiness - in short, the cardi-nal dimensions of truth, of social form, and of beauty. What forms could/should/will these dimensions take in Africa? Where do the margins of the creative possibilities and the dangers lie?

Buddhist thought

Let us postulate that, in spite of its lack of philosophical and organisational centralism, and notwithstanding its historical wealth, Buddhist thought can be interpreted as a growing, organic whole. Let us see the original suttas, the Abhidham¬ma, the Madhyamika, the Yogacara, Hua-yen, T'ien-t'ai and so on (I am not even remotely trying to be comprehensive) all adding up to a "to-talistic synthesis", to use a phrase coined by Verdu (1981), in which all the different intellectual traditions add up to form a living organism transcending the constituent parts, a religio-philosophical whole, its metaphysical and epistemological spirit inspiring each of the members. Let us also assume that, given the characteristic tenor of Buddhism, there will be no effort at closing any of this, or all of this, down in a "totalitarian" dogmatic regime.
It cannot be denied that this organic growth was largely stimulated by Buddhism's moving into a wide variety of cultures in different parts of the world and in different epochs in Asia. If we look at the Asian prototypes of Buddhist adaptations in China, Tibet, Japan and so on, the normal gestation period of such an emerging syncretism was centuries, after a "mother" had been im-pregnated in a new cultural environment. We cannot enter into the questions of the dynamics of such transplantations here. Suffice it to say that it is only in the fairly recent past that a Western type of Buddhist thought, developing in symbiosis with Western cultural forms, started to become a possibility. In the West, the intellectual points of contact exploited include individual think-ers such as Neo-Platonic mystic Meister Eckhart, process philosopher Alfred North Whitehead and decon¬struct¬ionist Jacques Derrida, to mention a few, spanning several centuries. Among Westerners intellectual points of convergence with or divergence from Buddhist teachings would include topics such as rebirth as a cosmological concept, the relationship between Buddhism and psychotherapy, Buddhism and science, and so on.
Coming to Africa, the various modes of encounter that typically occur when religions are transplanted (such as confrontation and conflict, ambiguity and alignment, recoupment and - even-tually - innovative self-development) should all be expected as Buddhism strikes roots in Africa. It is perfectly understandable that the classical traditions of Asia would want to see their vari-ous cargoes of precious goods treasured in the voyage across. After all, we are here looking at some of the greatest philosophical traditions in humankind's history, developed by generations of minds. As far as South Africans with strong European affiliations are concerned, the same intellectual debate as one would find in America or Europe, could be heard. But sooner or later - and rather sooner than later - in the debate between Buddhism and African thought, the points of contact between the two worldviews will have to be explored. In the limited space available to me, I cannot begin to explore these issues, and therefore restrict myself to a few general comments.
African correlations with Buddhist thought may indeed not be that difficult to establish. In its contact with Christianity (that only really took off in the nineteenth century), A frican religion responded to the challenge by emphasising those elements in its own religious repertoire that seemed to correspond to the dominant religious model , namely monotheism, by highlighting the notion of a Supreme Being. However, in traditional African cosmology the role of such a Being is largely restricted to having created the world, after which he withdrew into the state of a rather distant and disinterested deus otiosus. In its actual ontology, traditional African thought is led by a profound feeling for relations, which is not completely dissimilar from the Buddhist view. For example, consider (to mention just one African intellectual) the following statement by K C Anyanwu: "Since everything is in everything else and conditioned by everything else, there are no static or permanent positions in the universe. There is no firm hold anywhere. The universe of life-force is one of transformation and transmutation ... each in each; all through everybody else." On the level of the intellectual articulation of Buddhism, this certainly reminds one of, for example, Hua-yen metaphysic with its aesthetic metaphysic of the mutual interpenetration of all things. In a more general sense, Buddhists in Africa should know, and respect, the African worldview. It is a dialogue that has not even started.
Allow me to raise another strategic issue related to the above. What attitude would Buddhism, being one of the smaller minority religions, adopt vis-avis other religions in the multifaceted African panorama? Since my task is to raise some of these issues, I shall not attempt to provide a full answer to this particular question. However, personally I believe that apart from the histor-ical contingencies of religio-political astuteness, a Buddhist hermeneutic of religions would, for various philosophical reasons, not pit Buddhism against any other worldview. Rather than pre-senting itself as one mountain stream competing with the others next to it, Buddhism would present itself as the ocean into which all rivers empty themselves after their headlong rush down mountain sides have ended and they move quietly and broadly. Not that there is no need from time to time for vigorous polemical debate. Cheap harmonisation would certainly not be on the agenda of Buddhism which, throughout its entire history, placed a high premium on intellectual acumen and integrity. In one perspective, Buddhism could be seen as the end of all religion, if "religion" is taken to stand for substantialised chunks of dogmatic truth.
Related to the above, is what I consider to be the valuable asset of the academic study of Buddhism at local (that is, South African, and African) universities, both in the academic disci-pline of religious studies, as well as in the specialist academic discipline of Buddhist Studies as such, not merely as a clinical study about Buddhism, but fostering understanding of this great tradition. The provision of this kind of local intellectual backbone may prove to be essential for the sustenance and growth of Buddhism on this continent. As a matter of fact, the main reason why Buddhism, after a promising start, eventually petered out among South African Indians in the early twenties of this century, may have been the lack of intellectual resources in the commu-nity, cut off as those Buddhists were from India. Fortunately, at the moment Buddhism is taught at several South African universities, as part of their programmes of Religious Studies. There are quite a number of post-graduate students in Buddhism at South African universities, and hardly a year passes without at least one master's dissertation or doctor's thesis focussing on Buddhism being completed at one of our universities. However, the scope for research is unlimited, and overall it must be said that the academic study of Buddhism on this continent is still in the pioneer-ing phase. In addition to what is being done in the various departments of Religious Studies, the planned institution of Buddhist Studies per se as a fully-fledged university subject by the African Buddhist College of the Fo Kuang Shan Order must be rated as an important event in the process of indigenising Buddhism in Africa.
In a wider literary sense, it can be reported that locally written and produced books and articles on Buddhism are starting to make their appearance at fairly regular intervals. Three categories of publications can be distinguished. First, there are publications of an academic nature. Here, a further two sub-categories should be distinguished: those publications that deal with Buddhism as their "object" of interest; and those publications that introduce Buddhism into the wider cultural discourse, simply by taking part in the general philosophical, sociological, psychological and other kinds of intellectual discourse. Both types can be found on a modest scale.
Secondly, there is the important category of locally written and produced popular literature, written by (South) Africans for (South) Africans. This literature, which aims to bring Buddhism to a wider audience, and outside the walls of academia, can of course operate at various levels, and all are valid. Here too, the output is by no means negligible, even if it is not large. For exam-ple, there are a number of newsletters with information and a good intellectual content, brought out by local Buddhist establishments. And all local groups evince a strong interest in the teachings of Buddhism.
Thirdly, there is the category of translations of classical Buddhist texts from Pali, Sanskrit, Tibetan, Mandarin or Japanese. Again, I regard this as of great importance. It is only when the message is re-said in the local language, that it really becomes indigenous. English speaking South Africans of course have the great advantage that they share a language of universal spread with millions of others in a great many countries, and that they have at their disposal a library of translations that they could not read through in a life-time, even if they tried their best. As far as the other languages are concerned, the picture is less rosy. Restricting ourselves to South Africa for now, there are a small number of translations of Pali literature into Afrikaans available on the market. But, as far as I know, virtually nothing has been translated into any of the black languages of the country. This is of course not said to criticise any efforts to promote locally the study of the great original languages in which the teaching has been transmitted through the centuries, such as Sanskrit, Pali, Tibetan or Mandarin. Far from it. But particularly at the level of the more popular distribution of knowledge among the wider African populace, efforts at providing inexpensive translations of suitable literature that could be made available, should be considered more seriously than they are at present.
The training of monks and nuns is another aspect of great strategic importance. Although Buddhism in African is fortunate in having the expertise of a small number of dedicated monks and nuns from Asia and other highly trained experts (Asian, as well as European, American and South African) to draw on for intellectual leadership, the intellectual training of monks and nuns from an African background is an as yet underdeveloped aspect. In this regard the years to come may provide an opportunity to witness a fascinating experiment, as the initiative of the Fo Kuang Shan Order at Bronkhorstspruit to provide intellectual training to young African prospective monks, may take off and play a significant role as far as the position of Buddhism on this continent is concerned.
Of equal importance is the capacity-building of lay Buddhists, as far as the scope for growth in the dharma is concerned. In South Africa the rebirth of Buddhism since the sixties and sev-enties will always be associated with the names of a few lay Buddhists, women and men, in various places in the country, who spared neither time nor effort to lay foundations for the future. Apart from the leaders of a number of Buddhist establishments of various schools in several parts of the country, who (although not monks or nuns) hold official positions in those schools, there are at present a number of outstanding lay leaders of smaller groups in various parts of the country, providing intellectual leadership. And there are probably thousands of people, including attenders of meditation groups, who are deeply interested in the teaching of Buddhism. I am only emphasising, in general terms, the strategic importance of adequate intellectual provision.
A last point: from the point of view of promoting an understanding of Buddhism, an important point on the agenda would be the teaching of Buddhism at school level in South Africa. In this regard serious efforts are under way to create space for the introduction of multireligious religious education in South African schools. In the absence of Buddhist private religious schools (where direct instruction in Buddhism might have been provided) the best - rather, the only - opportunity is to provide information about Buddhism in general public school curricula.

Buddhist organisation

In Africa, as elsewhere, Buddhism has the task of organising the unorganisable, of giving social structure to an impetus that in the final analysis cannot be pinned down in any structure. What would Buddhist structures in Africa look like - structures that would be practical and effective, yet would, as far as possible, avoid the power games that seem to be endemic in all human social endeavours? Of course, one could point at the various structures of the various Buddhist communities continuing the models of the classical mother countries - models that have been tried and tested, honed and perfected through centuries of experience, and are worthy of the deepest respect. At this stage, it seems that such structures, of various Theravada and Mahayana backgrounds, though very young in Africa, are well established, and are rendering great service to this continent. As our colloquium proceeds, we will hear a great deal more about them, and certainly all of us would wish every one of those structures the very best for the future.
While bearing in mind that the transculturation of Buddhism from India to the other Asian countries to the extent that Buddhism could be seen as indigenous to those countries, took centu-ries to be completed, the responsible thing for leaders of the local communities would nevertheless be, I suggest, to be aware of potential points of growth, where grafting onto the local so-cio-cultural scene may be done successfully at this stage. At the organisational or structural level of indigenisation there are aspects that come to mind as issues deserving a certain amount of strategic planning and co-operative effort. However much philosophical reserve one might have regarding religious organisations, the reality is that the transmission of any message requires something of the kind, however minimalist.
There seems to be a need for some sort of collective Buddhist representation from time to time, for example, to deal with government concerning religious education in schools, as well as a host of other issues of great national significance. Apart from that, there is the need to establish a structural niche among other religions. There are certain fields where Buddhism may co-operate with other religions, to the benefit of all and the country (and continent) as a whole. And then there are inner-Buddhist interests, that will only be met by some sort of umbrella body. Here one may, for example, think of the issues raised under the previous point. In order to achieve goals such as these, common sense dictates that the present fragmentation (even opposition?) within South African Buddhism must be overcome - certainly not by creating some sort of centralistic body of governance, but a light and loose, yet effective, service and support organisation com-manding a certain degree of collective allegiance.
What I am saying, points in the direction of forming the kind of body mooted about two years ago, to establish some sort of overarching umbrella organisation for Buddhism in South Africa (perhaps Africa).
There are a number of similar organisations in existence in other countries. In Germany, for example, the Deutsche Buddhistische Union was established in 1955 to promote mutual co-operation between the various groups in Germany, to establish links with other religions on the basis of genuine tolerance, to organise seminars, and so on. A similar body was erected in New South Wales (Australia), and Australians are in the process of forming a Federation of Buddhist Councils of Australia, led by the kind of strategic planning that I have just mentioned, such as: dealing with government at various levels concerning various issues, to act as a watchdog and to take appropriate action in cases of prejudice, disadvantage and insult to member organisa-tions or to Buddhism in general, to foster a spirit of fellowship, co-operation and friendship amongst Buddhists belonging to the constituent groups, to serve as a forum for the discussion of matters of common interest to all Buddhists, to work for peace through inter-religious co-operation, to organise/conduct training programmes, seminars and so on, even to publish journals, newsletters and books. To me it seems to be something deserving the serious attention of local Buddhists.

Buddhist art and ritual

Time does not permit to take up in any depth the aspect of giving expression to the ethos and feeling quality of Buddhism as it appears in its morality, its art and its ritual - in short, the di-mension of beauty. For example, in Chinese Buddhism the message of the profound mutuality of all entities has found expression in an aesthetic quality of immense subtlety pervading the lives of the Buddhist community, to such an extent that someone from outside may well wonder what it must feel like to be heir to such a rich inheritance of aesthetic sophistication. The same applies to Japanese, Sri Lankan and other forms of Buddhist culture. In this respect too, a fascinating process of cultural negotiation lies ahead of (South) Africans as well as of immigrant Buddhist schools. As in the case of intellectual and organisational enculturation, Buddhist history is a showcase of manifold developments. We all know, and admire, not only Indian and Sri Lankan, but also Thai and Tibetan and Chinese and Japanese forms of Buddhist art, of "idiosyncratic" national expressions of the Buddhist worldview, with forms of Western expression emerging. Africa is still virgin territory as far as these aspects are concerned, and local Buddhists of this generation are the observers, and the makers, of a remarkable process where Asia and the West and Africa are entering into a unique and unprecedented trialogue. To mention a few obvious aspects of the local scene: is it, for example, true that Theravada appeals more to people with Protestant Euro-pean roots, whereas (for example) Tibetan and Pure Land with their stronger visual and auditory presentation would appeal more to people with African roots? Or do people with European background merely have a one-sided idea of Buddhism when they more or less reduce it to private or group meditation, whereas in Theravada countries Buddhism actually finds expression in various forms of ritual appealing to the susceptibility of people to the suggestive quality of sound and colour and bodily movement? But would the strong focus on the inner life of the individu-al in meditation, not also be very legitimate, and deserving of support and promotion, deriving as it does from the very core of ancient Buddhism? Do these questions not at least indicate that there may be legitimacy in a variety of Buddhisms existing in good neighbourliness and complementarity? Another example: how would Africans respond to, let us say, a Buddha statue, given their long association with Jewish, Christian and Muslim views on religious sculpture and painting? Only experience can tell.
It is time to end this very brief introductory perambulation of some issues of academic and practical strategic relevance that would demand not only thorough reflection, but also the kind of compassion that lies at the heart of the Buddhist message, and efficient action. I am sure that during our deliberations we will have opportunity to enter much deeper into these issues. I am con-vinced that at least the ones that I mentioned deserve serious attention, and I am happy that we at Unisa can be of some assistance in addressing them.

Notes


References

Baumann, M 1994. The transplantation of Buddhism to Germany: processive modes and strategies of adaptation, Method & Theory in the Study of religion, Vol 6/1
Baumann, M 1996. Buddhism in the West: phases, orders and the creation of an integrative Buddhism, Internationales Asienforum, Vol 27/3-4, pp 345-362.
Pye, M & Morgan, R (eds) 1973. The cardinal meaning: essays in comparative hermeneutics: Buddhism and Christianity. The Hague: Mouton.
Ruch, E A & Anyanwu,KC 1981. African philosophy: an introduction to the main philosophical trends in contemporary Africa. Rome: Catholic Book Agency.
Verdu. A 1981. The philosophy of Buddhism. A "totalistic" synthesis. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers.
 
 
Discussion*

Comment: We must accept the fact of globalisation, not only in an economic, but also in a spiritual sense. If Buddhism is to compete in the "marketplace" of religions, there is much work ahead.

Question: Does all this not mean that Africa is about to be missionised again, from Asia rather than Europe this time? Can such an enterprise really be justified?

Krüger: I think that it is a question for all of us here: What would a Buddhist teaching to Africa be? Not a Buddhist missionary enterprise, but can one draw certain principles from Buddhist history? This is something that I know Michel is working on. How does one go about propagating Buddhism without the negative effects of "mission work"? Can Buddhism promote itself as Buddhism and at the same time enrich Africa? That would be the sort of ideal that we would be looking for. How was it done in the past? Along what sort of lines should this be happening? Perhaps we can find some guidelines at this conference.

Comment: Under the new constitution, we are now able to do religious education at schools. But there are so many traditions. How are we going to reach common ground so that it doesn't become an exclusive kind of education? I think this is an important issue that we all need to address, otherwise we are going to regress into the same old issues that we had under the old educational system.
 
The Buddha of Suburbia a nineteenth-century South African imagining
Darrel Wratten, University of Cape Town


Although widely viewed as absent from the history of religions in South Africa, Buddhism has been present in this region from at least the 1680s. Between June of 1685 and April of 1688, for example, several Theravadin Buddhist monks from Siam were resident at the Cape as guests of Simon van der Stel. Two centuries later, as Louis Van Loon has shown, several Indian Buddhist communities, among them the Overport Buddhist Sakya Society, were established in Natal.
The presence of Buddhism in South Africa has persisted. In 1911, the first year that Buddhism was tabulated in South African census returns, 436 persons signalled their commitment to the tradition. By 1991 the number had grown to around 3000, in part due to the remarkable appearance earlier of 1407 African "black Buddhists".
Today, nearly all major traditions are represented - Tibetan (dGelug, bKagyu, and Sakya); Theravada; Zen (Soto and Rinzai); Pure Land; and Nichiren. A Theravadin-oriented retreat and meditation centre exists at Ixopo, in Kwazulu/Natal. There is a Korean-style zendo in Robertson, in the Western Cape. And a Chinese temple has been built in Bronkhorstspruit, in Gauteng.
Ironically, therefore, it was only in 1986, the year in which Buddhist conscientious objector David Hartman forced state legislators to legally ratify its presence, that Buddhism was first catalogued within a taxonomy of South African religions.
Up until that point, South African scholars had largely excluded the tradition from an index of local religious beliefs and practices. Kalman Papp, who was responsible for the entry on Buddhism in the Standard Encyclopaedia for Southern Africa, contended that although Buddhism numbered five hundred followers in the country in 1959, the tradition remained what he termed a "vreemde godsdiens binne ons landsgrense (literally, a strange service to god within our borders)". Buddhists, both strange and foreign, did not belong within the borders of a South African imagining of religion (Papp 1971,1959).
This history of ellipsis continued to dominate occasional references to Buddhism in the academy. In an essay on world religions documented for the Nederduitsche Gereformeerde Kerk, Hendrik Alphonse Daniel du Toit, a professor of Practical Theology at the University of Pretoria, questioned whether Buddhism was a religion at all. God was not present in its "theology" and there was no mention of sin in its teachings. If Buddhism was a religion, Du Toit pointed out, it was clearly not an "ethnic" South African religion. Buddhism was a foreign disorder, a degenerate adulteration of ethnographic order in South Africa (Du Toit 1970).
Framed in a similar, Christian comparative reflex of denial, and in cognate accusations of degeneracy, DH Steenberg's 1975 article on Zen Buddhism for the Instituut vir die Bevordering van Calvinisme at the University of Potchefstroom suggested that Buddhism, outside of its monastic, Asian context, was a contradiction. Non-Asian forms of Buddhist practice were to be con-sidered irregular. Additionally, however, Steenberg concluded that the Buddhist notion of Nirvana was a soteriolo¬gical "doodloopstraat" (cul de sac). Buddhism could be characterized by what he termed "theological horizontalism" (Steenberg 1979).
In these terms, Buddhism was perceived as either absent or as aberrant in the history of religions in South Africa.
Far from being absent in Africa or, as Stephen Batchelor has suggested, merely a "postscript" to the emergence of Buddhism in the West, South Africa has been an historic focal point in the interpretive construction or imagining of Buddhism beyond Asia.
First, travellers, missionaries, and merchants journeying to Europe from Ceylon (Sri Lanka), Siam (Thailand), China, or Japan were forced to pass through the Cape, suggesting that the re-gion was more a cosmopolitan centre than a liminal extremity in the transferral of knowledge about the peoples, habits, and religions of the Orient, especially Buddhism. To cite one example: The first Ambassador Plenipotentiary to China, the Earl of Macartney, along with his aide, the renowned South African traveller John Barrow, returned from Asia to South African in the 1790s to take up the post of first British Governor of the Cape. It was here that he wrote a popular and well read report describing the religions of China, among them Buddhism. Although more auto-biographical than ethnographic, Macartney's account, and others like it, provided resources for South Africans to construct an image of what Buddhism could or should be like. Their interpreta-tions, denominated either by the discourse of difference, or by the sameness of colonial hegemony, confirmed seventeenth and eighteenth-century suspicions: Buddhism was tabled either as a "romantic" repository of exotic Otherness, or imagined against an index of European originality. Increasingly evacuated of any distinctiveness or subjectivity, Buddhism became an object of European "desire".
In this imagining of Buddhism, the country mirrored earlier African inquiries. From at least the third century, for example, Greek philosophers and Christian theologians in Africa had struggled to ascribe meaning to travellers' accounts of Asian religions: Plotinus viewed Buddhism from Alexandria in North Africa as an original aspect of Greek civilization (McCrindle 1877); Clement of Alexandria wrote in his Stromata from the same African city, that Buddhist sramanas were the original philosophers (Welbon 1968); his disciple, Origen, asserted that Buddhists were not only the first philosophers, they were the progenitors of Christianity in Europe. In fact, suggested Origen, Britain "had long been disposed to (Christianity) through the doctrines of the Druids and the Buddhists" (Mackenzie 1928).
Second, and emerging as a consequence of colonial expansion and missionary endeavours to understand the Other, South Africa became a focal point for more "scientific" nine-teenth century constructions outlining the meaning of Buddhism. Unlike earlier "romantic" imaginings, these South African inquiries, published in a proliferation of Cape journals and reviews, began to classify Buddhism and establish an inventory of its central tenets according to "fixed" rules of textual analysis and historical reconstruction. An ensuing project of textual reification, ordered according to the canon of conventions implicit to the burgeoning work of Orientalists, philologists, and students of comparative religion, helped to develop an academic discourse and invent the measure against which South Africans would encounter Buddhism. By the mid nineteenth century, and contemporaneously with its European "invention," the origin of Buddhism and of its founder Gautama had been examined: Based on a taxonomy of similitude or difference to known religions, Buddhism was thought to have originated in Africa.
The nineteenth century encounter with Buddhism in South African academic discourse a discourse wherein Buddhism was collected in an archive of its texts, or displayed in an inventory of its material objects prefigured a third way in which Buddhism could be imagined by South Africans in the nineteenth-century. In what might be termed an essentially "Protestant" appropria-tion, South African nonconformists - Unitarians, Spiritualists, and Theosophists - began to expand academic discourse and initiate religious debate. Some South Africans converted to Buddhism, albeit within the confines of this Protestant constraint or the limits of Victorian social acceptability. By 1880, for example, the Cape Unitarian minister Ramsden Balmforth insisted in Liberal Religion that readers could encounter in Buddhism a spark of "Ultimate Truth". Two years later, David Pieter Faure's Unitarian tract Reasonable Religion lauded the reformist example of the Buddha, urging South Africans to seek in Buddhism an aspect of this "Higher Truth". Olive Schreiner's Buddhist Priest's Wife, published in Matjiesfontein in 1899, reflects the degree of popular interest; so too does the conversion to Buddhism somewhat later of the Afrikaans poet and nationalist C Louis Leipoldt.
The construction of Buddhism as a reified textual imagining predominated all three conventions - the marvellous accounts of travellers; the "scientific" endeavours of nineteenth century scholars whose writings aimed to overcome the amateurism of imagination encountered in earlier travelogues; and the conversations of fin de siecle spiritual seekers and religious nonconform-ists. Theirs was a construction however, that in its attempt to make familiar the exotic strangeness of an undomesticated religion, produced a fictitious but believable image of the Buddhist tradi-tion. As author and playwright Hanif Kureishi (1990) has shown in his brilliantly anarchic comic novel The Buddha of Suburbia, theirs was an imagining, moreover, that was perhaps also more persuasive than verifiable observation.
The questions travellers and nineteenth-century South African inquirers raised about the meaning of Buddhism and its doctrinal differences were questions, however, that reached, by com-mon consent, their classic formulation in the published record of the founding "father" of nineteenth-century French Buddhology, Eugene Burnouf.

Textualising Buddhism

Drawing on the "original documents of the Sanskrit "canon" that the British colonial agent Brian Houghton Hodgson had first stolen in Nepal and then bequeathed to the Societe Asiatique in Paris in 1824, Burnouf published in 1844 his Introduction a l'histoire du Buddhisme Indien. The volume was regarded as authoritative in South African during the second half of the nineteenth century. Chambers' encyclopaedia in 1874 argued that Burnouf's work was "the beginning of anything like correct information on the subject (of Buddhism) among the Western nations".
As Burnouf insisted, however, to "unveil" authoritative statements concerning Buddhism was only possible because the Sanskrit had been deciphered. He was indebted, in this regard, to Friedrich Max Muller. It was Muller's assertion that Sanskrit was one of the most original languages that had done much to displace Ernst Renan's view that Semitic languages, especially Hebrew, should be regarded as the primordial root of the religious imagination.
As the primal language, Sanskrit was also used by students of philology in South African to delineate the origins and subsequent decay of religions in the Cape, In 1881, for example, The-opholis Hahn, a government philologist who on the recommendation of Max Muller was made warden of the Grey Collection, recalled that the study of Sanskrit afforded students of compara-tive religion in South Africa a chance to unravel the pre-historic myths and rituals of the Khoi. Hahn warned his students, however, that excursions into Sanskrit could not be conducted in order to "claim an anthropological or ethnic relationship for the worshippers of Tsui//Goab (a Khoi deity) and those of the Buddha" (Hahn 1881:149-150).
A year earlier, however, James Gill of the department of classics at the Diocesan College had written an article for the Cape Monthly Magazine in which he cited the authority of Max Muller to suggest that Sanskrit did throw light on the ethnic composition and religion of South African races. Since Sanskrit was the "common language that had given birth to all," Khoi religion, as many nineteenth-century travellers to South Africa observed in the term Sneze Hotnot (Chinese Hottentot), could be viewed as a distant relative of the preeminent Sanskrit religion, Buddhism (Gill 1880:382, 1890:30).
To document the historical origins and subsequent diffusion of Buddhism, therefore, required an understanding of Sanskrit. But it also required access to those "canonical" books that af-forded the linguist "permanent and definite criteria" by which to evaluate the tradition. As Max Muller declared, the possibility of distinguishing between what was "pure," "ancient," and "free from blemish" from what was "mythological crust," "afterthought," or the "lengthy lucubrations of ancient poets and prophets" that marked the "corruption of later years" was contingent on the collection and interpretation of Buddhist texts (Muller 1867:xiv, 183, 1873:26).
Applying the same rules of analysis to Buddhism that emerged in biblical criticism, two corresponding impulses emerged in processes of collection, translation, and redaction. First, a distinc-tion was established between earlier, "orthodox" Pali (Theravada) texts and later, "heterodox" Sanskrit (Mahayana) writings. Confirming the distinction and its corollary, that Buddhism had be-come increasingly corrupt or degenerate, was the widespread opinion that Asia appeared as a reverse of the history that Europe recognized of itself - the history of a continent once powerful and dynamic but now in a state of impotent decay. The act of collecting and translating texts, therefore, was in some respects viewed by nineteenth century linguists and emergent Buddhologists as a sort of "redemptive salvage".
Second, scholars began to discriminate against anthropological data that might interfere with this canonical precision. In his Hibbert Lectures on the Origin and Growth of Religion, Max Muller devoted an entire chapter to discounting the uncritical acceptance of ethnological data in the work of "perhaps the forerunner of the anthropological school of comparative religion, Charles de Brosses". Pursuing this line of attack against the work of Andrew Lang who, Max Muller argued, had tried to explain Asian mythology by analogical reference to "Kaffirs and Hot-tentots," he insisted that what was required was not ethnological data, but the "linguistic and genealogical" study of texts.
Fixed in a transcript recovered by redemptive European redaction and indexed against this textuality, a more systematic and "scientific" attempt at classification began to replace earlier tex-tual imaginings of Buddhism in South Africa.

Classifying Buddhism

Notwithstanding the proliferation of Buddhist texts translated into European languages, the exact position of Buddhism among the world religions remained elusive. Inquirers were unsure of how to classify the tradition. Like the reviewer in the Oriental Herald and Journal of General Literature, many had to admit that Buddhism was essentially incompatible with any available tax-onomy of religion. Buddhism was not a religion but an absurd or plainly superstitious form of idolatry: "An interminably sheer absurdity," noted Hodgson (1874:98); a "conglomeration of su-perstitions," argued Burnouf (1888:187); a "hydra of superstition," wrote the missionary Charles Gutzlaff (1856:79); but a "hideous system" from which it would be an error to expect any order that was "methodological and regular," suggested the missionary-Buddhologist Barthelemy St Hilaire (1895:13 16, 28, 67, 95, 163).
Confusion about the exact status and position of Buddhism was manifest among South African reviewers also. Alfred W Cole and his editorial colleague Roderick Noble, a professor of physical chemistry at the South African College, reviewed in the Cape Monthly Magazine for 1860 the work of Gutzlaff: because the Chinese Buddhists were "faggots of contradiction," both "asinine" and amphibious," living as happily on land as in the water, Cole and Noble proposed that they could have no coherent religion. Having concluded that Buddhism was not a religion, however, the reviewers compared the tradition to Roman Catholicism: Buddhist priests in Shanghai spent their days "intoning and chanting a monotonous sort of sleepy Gregorian chant" remi-niscent of Catholicism in Genoa and other Italian towns". (Cole, AW & Noble, R 1860). Comparisons between Buddhism and Catholicism were particularly persuasive among Protestant mis-sionaries who frequently used the analogy to extend anti-Catholic invective.
As colonial encounters with Buddhism increased and "scientific" practices of the division and subclassification of religions expanded, Buddhism was appropriated into new classificatory paradigms. These were crystalized most frequently into the recurring questions, first, as to whether Buddhism was a philosophy or a religion, and, second, if it was a religion, whether it was to be considered " theist," "at heist," " pantheist," or " polytheist?"
Barthelemy St Hilaire (1895:175) was unsure as to whether Buddhism might better be considered a philosophy rather than a religion. Buddhologist Monier Monier-Williams (1900:13) sug-gested the possibility that since Buddhism offered "no God, no Supreme Being, no real prayer, no real clergy," and "lay(s) no claim to any supernatural revelation," it might be more correctly considered a philosophy. Others asserted that Buddhism was theistic: Whoever regards Buddhism as atheistic or materialistic, noted Burnouf (1888: 86,89), surely forgets that "pantheism is the foundation of that religion".
A reviewer in the first volume of the South African Church Magazine and Ecclesiastical Review (Anonymous, 1853:14,71-72) was understandably confused. Suggesting that Buddhism was a "diabolical caricature" of religion, the reviewer classified it as atheist, adding however, that Buddhism might also be regarded as pantheist. Likewise, in an earlier extract from the French jour-nal Revue Trimestrielle, the Oriental Herald for 1828 informed Cape readers that Buddhist doctrines advanced "pantheist notions of an absolute Being". Pantheism, suggested the reviewer, placed Buddhism in the same category as the "Brahmins of the school of the Vedanta ... and some modern sects of the West" (Anonymous 1828:511-12) .
Confusion as to the exact position of Buddhism on the scale of religious systems continued. The theistic taxonomy in particular proved as fluid as it was confused. In a paper on the "Ani-mism of the Bantu," published in 1924, the Reverend A Louw (1924:57) queried whether Buddhism was "an atheistic religion (that) in practice was also a polytheistic atheism". One thing was abundantly clear though: Buddhism was a confused system.
The possibility of arresting the document of Buddhism by placing it into one of these categories -- either superstition or religion; either theism, atheism, polytheism, or pantheism -- raised subsequent questions whether, if a religion at all, Buddhism was an original religion? If it not original, was it a corrupt form of Christianity? Or a degenerate aspect of some other religious or philosophical system? One reviewer for the Cape Monthly Magazine asserted that Buddhism was a "creed more primitive and more original than Christianity" (V 0 1876:145). This was a con-nection, however, that many felt compromised Christianity. An essay on the comparison between Buddhism and Christianity appearing in an 1886 edition of the Eastern Cape journal the Chris-tian Express (T D P, 1886:126) suggested that the thesis denied the "divine origin of our faith". The reviewer noted that "the rise of Buddhism as a protest against Brahmanism in India (was) a very remarkable event in the religious history of the human race and worthy of the attentive study of all Christians". Resemblances to Christianity, however, were "too superficial to bear exami-nation"..
The recognition by the reviewer of an Indian, Hindu origin for Buddhism was hindered by an appeal to Jewish roots. "Would it not be more rational to argue," continued the Christian Ex-press, "that as Christianity developed out of the Mosaic revelation, so Buddhism may have derived what is excellent in its system from the same source?" Six years earlier the same journal noted that Buddhism was indeed an ancient religion, dating back to "well within a thousand years of the flood". The "Buddhist decalogue" was probably "handed down from the immediate descend-ants of Noah"(T D P 1880:8).
Most South African accounts of Buddhism, therefore, had trouble accepting that Buddhism was an autonomous and independent religion, preferring to trace its origins back to some Chris-tian or Jewish genesis. A reviewer in the South African Church Magazine and Ecclesiastical Review noted in 1853 that the Christian prototype was "not a matter of controversy". The connection between "Judaism or early Christianity, with the Pythagoreans or the Manichees; with the Nestorian Tartars, or Franciscan Missionaries (was) one of those obvious facts". Framed in this Chris-tian genealogy, the "essence" of Buddhism remained unoriginal or degenerate, as the same writer argued that Buddhism was "a mass of trickery," or a "mixture of sense and religion with credu-lity, imposture, and connivance at imposture. (Anonymous, 1853:71, 77, 79).
Not merely unauthentic, Buddhism, for some commentators, was actually Satanic. A correspondent for the Protestant journal The South African Christian Recorder noted in 1836 that the Chinese, in search of an incarnate saviour, were "fatally misled by the Satanic stratagem" of Buddhists, just as Buddhists had been deceived by the "Satanic strategies" of Catholic missionaries. "Coming from India," and "announcing an incarnate God," the Buddhists were taken to be disciples of Christ. "Thus was this religion introduced into China and thus did this phantasmagoria of hell intercept the light of the true gospel" (Anonymous 1836:131).
Throughout the nineteenth century, writers in South Africa continued to demonize Buddhism. In 1880, for example, William Thompson (1881:5) cited Asia as the birth place of the Buddha and the "seat of Satan". Questions relating to the origin and authenticity of the founder of Buddhism nonetheless proliferated.

Finding the Founder

Although as early as 1690 travellers had traced the origins of Gautama the Buddha back to India, it was not until the late 1840s and the publication of Burnouf's work that the subcontinent was generally accepted as the birth place of Siddhartha. Indian originality, however, remained a subject open to scholarly debate. The quest for an aetiology of the Buddha took several bizarre turns. Among them was an attempt to situate the historical Buddha not in India, but in Africa.
The Orientalist William Jones (1800:401) was first in the English speaking world to argue for this unlikely but "well reasoned" and "objective" genealogy". The "mild heresy of the ancient Buddhas" had been imported into India from Egypt, Jones asserted. As evidence he referred readers to the "African" features of the Buddha in Indian iconography. The nineteenth century comparative religionist William Francklin (1827:72) drew the same African connection in Ceylon. "His woolly and frizzled hair, thick lips and Herculean form are cogent reasons for believing this shape of the divinity to have been of foreign importation ... The coincidence, in the sculptured details of Egypt, Persia, and the Hindoostan, are everywhere perceptible, and seem to have had one common origin".
The black Buddha was even to be seen in China. Gutzlaff (1856:79) wrote that the Buddha was often "represented in colossal form, with negro features, curled hair dyed a light blue, thick lips, and a flat broad nose". More than one reader was skeptical. Although some scholars had traced the origin of the Buddha's birth-place to Ethiopia, showing many statues of "Boodhoo (as) an African, having marked on them the short woolly hair, the flat dilated nostrils, the thick fleshy lips, and indeed every feature of the African countenance," these resemblances were, John Davy (1821:171) argued, entirely unconvincing.
However, the image of the African Buddha persisted in South Africa. Delegates at a congress of the Suid Afrikaanse Buro vir Rasse Aangeleenthede in 1956 learned from the ethnologist JP Bruwer's (1956:46) paper on "The Asian in Africa" that "die swart Boeddha van Indië gegiet is in die fisiese gestalte van die Negroide (the black Buddha of India originated in the physical image of the Negroid)". The Buddha was born in Africa!
In addition to comparative physiognomy, comparative philology, despite the warnings of Burnouf and Max Muller, also produced strangely familiar findings about the Buddha. In 1788, for example, William Chambers (1788:162-163) argued that a plausible relation might even be forged between the Buddha and the deities of Scandinavia: Based on linguistic links between the word Pout ("a corruption of the Siamese Buddhou") and the term Woden, the Buddha was as much at home in darkest Africa as he was in Denmark.
Attempts at salvaging a textually reified history of Buddhism, and a history of its founder, were mediated by subsequent and developing disciplines of comparative analysis. For example, William Charles Willoughby (1932:71), a tutor in comparative religion at the "Native Institution" of Tiger Kloof in the Northern Cape, argued that comparative geology offered insights into the African ancestry of the Buddha.
Francis Flemming, a missionary and traveller in the Cape in the mid nineteenth century, alluded to this link when accounting for the peculiar similarity between San and Chinese Buddhist paintings. In 1911, however, the missionary James McKay (1911:41) asserted that not only did San and Chinese paintings suggest the possibility of a common origin: "The Bushmen's assertion that their paintings were intended as embellishments of the caves, which were designed not as caves but as places of worship, probably proves this custom to have been inherited from Buddhist ancestors in East Africa, who would seem to have been a mixture of Egyptian and Chinese".
In the "sciences" of nineteenth century comparative philology and physiognomy, geology and archaeology, South Africa continued to be cited as one of many confusing Buddhist origins and one of a multiplicity of birth places for the historical Buddha. Alongside the quest for origins, however, the complimentary search for the inner workings of this tradition emerged in South African debate.


Inventory of Ideas

The interpretation of Buddhism's inner ideas, including the concepts of anatta (no-self, or no soul); pratityasamutpada (dependent co-origination, or causality); karma, (action); and nirvana (enlightenment), posed peculiar problems for nineteenth century inquirers in South Africa. Since European students of comparative religion had "captured' Buddhism in terms of its textuality, however, viewing the tradition as subject to an historical degeneration, several of these Buddhist terms were interpreted as exemplary of a corresponding quietism. The concepts of anatta, pratityasamutpada, and karma were thus frequently perceived by South Africans as exemplary of Asian "inertia". The South African Christian Express noted that anatta was not merely a "sad and soulless system," but was "nihilist" (St Hilaire 1895:175; T D P, 1880:8).
The charge of nihilism was a mechanism that absolved South Africans of attempts to grapple with religious difference. It was a charge that also congregated, as Guy Welbon's substantial work argues, around the central question of the meaning of nirvana. Thus, for the reviewer of an 1874 edition of the ill-named English/Xhosa journal The Kaffir Express, the concept of nirvana accumulatively proposed annihilation as the goal of human desire; left the mass of its votaries in the practice of the grossest idolatry; had nothing to show that God ever accepted its worship; and did not succeed in purifying and ennobling man, bringing him back to God".
Not surprisingly, therefore, when James Stuart was asked by his Zulu-speaking informant Mabaso which of the world religions most closely approached his own, the South African agent confessed that whilst the Romans relied on agricultural deities, and the Egyptians believed, like the Zulu, in worshipping cattle, "Buddhism was annihilation". "In what sense then", asked his informant, "can (Buddhism) ever become the rival of Christianity!" Since "fate rules all, (and) it supplies no energy in time," how could Buddhism ever hope to "build up a civilization at all to compare with the truth of the Christian gospel?".
Whatever the origin of Buddhism; whatever the aetiology of the historical Buddha., or whatever an apparent local repudiation of its central tenets, however, Buddhism was viewed as signif-icant to at least some South Africans. Two dominant nineteenth century areas of inquiry informed local interest.
First, a proliferation of South African missionaries in Ceylon, Siam, China, Tibet, and Japan during the last decades of the nineteenth century reflected the extent to which Buddhism in South Africa registered negatively, as something to be feared. In this sense, although "the new science of religion" had contributed a vast amount of knowledge concerning the "faiths of non Christian peoples," and whilst this science revealed that religion was "everywhere at some stage" of development, the Christian Express cautioned that the study of "comparative religion (was) to be viewed as dangerous to the Christian thinker". In response to that danger, the reviewer advised the student of comparative religion in South Africa to "approach the study of heathen religions and civilizations in the spirit of the writer to the Hebrews -- in the spirit of sympathetic appreciation, and yet desirous of leading (people) from the old to the new, from the star light of heathen faith to the sunlight of Christianity". He concluded: "We may name Buddha the Saviour of the world," or, in the words of Edwin Arnold, as "all honoured, wisest, best, and beautiful; the Teacher of Nirvana, and the Law. But in naming Buddha or any other by such a name we are speaking in a language of poetic fiction and not of actual fact. Apart from Christ no one can be saved" (Anonymous 1899:1117-118).
Second, however, Buddhism was viewed as significant because it provided a positive spiritual alternative for seekers dissatisfied with the supposed deficiencies of Protestant Christianity. Increasingly, Unitarians in South Africa were impressed by its rationalism; Theosophists by its recognizable esotericism. The Kaffir Express, echoing Max Muller's argument, suggested that "in the encouragement of free inquiry into the foundations of belief" in Buddhism and Christianity, therefore, "a religion purer than either, which will be the religion of the future," was beginning to emerge (Anonymous 1874:1).
The emergence of that "Higher Truth" in South Africa was nonetheless inscribed within the constraints of a European imagining. Aspects of Buddhism that were thought incompatible with Unitarian or Theosophical interest were erased or ignored. In this respect, the late nineteenth century encounter with Buddhism and its increasing presence in South African debate was again informed by the impulse to "arrest" the tradition in the secure confines of its European imagining. Buddhism remained in the hands of scholars who continued to collect and translate texts from Pali and Sanskrit and to index the meaning or "purity" of Buddhism against this textuality. As Philip Almond (1988) has noted, Buddhism became increasingly less a living religion of the present than it was a religion of the past "bound" by its own textuality".

Notes


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Buddhism in South Africa: its past history, present status and likely future Louis Van Loon, Buddhist Institute of South Africa*


 
Historical background

 
At the very beginning of the Buddha's career as a spiritual teacher, when the number of his disciples amounted to no more than sixty, he admonished them to propagate his teachings, and proclaim the good and holy life to all and sundry. As happened with all other major religions, it is clear that, from very small beginnings, a powerful religious message has the capacity to assume vast proportions and weave itself into the social fabric and culture of a multitude of nations.
Although the Buddha taught his doctrine to a wide variety of people, from simple farmers to fellow philosophers and Brahmin priests, his religion remained a predominantly contemplative, monastic movement until the emperor Ashoka converted to Buddhism in 261 BCE and made it the state religion of his large Indian empire. Traditionally, missionary work can be considered to have begun in earnest with Ashoka and it is significant that he remained true to the Buddha's injunction to preach the Dharma for the "good, benefit and happiness" of the people. By his own account, Ashoka considered that the most important doctrines of the Buddha were ahimsa - avoiding doing harm to others - and maitri - practising active benevolence towards one's fellow crea-tures (Mookerji 1972).
In his many edicts, engraved on numerous stone pillars and slabs erected throughout his vast empire, he exhorted his subjects to practise tenderness and harmlessness towards all creatures (he became a vegetarian himself and instituted "non slaughter days"), and demonstrated this principle of kindness and compassion by the good works he carried out for the benefit of his sub-jects, from planting banyan trees and wells dug along the roads to give shade and refreshment to animals and men, to having hospitals and veterinary clinics built throughout his empire and be-yond.
It remained a characteristic of the spread of Buddhism throughout the east that it became known as the religion of compassion and that its propagation was driven more by the practice of good works than by theological persuasion. This coincided with the development of Mahayana Buddhism, with its emphasis on a saviour type Bodhisattva who is endlessly prepared to work towards the well being and eventual enlightenment of all beings rather than the Hinayana monk who was, rightly or wrongly, considered to be interested principally in his own salvation.
Monastic Buddhism continued to exist alongside secular forms of the religion in all eastern Buddhist countries. In the early Hinayana tradition the active development of virtue was common to both the monk and the lay person. But whereas a monk or nun was expected to practise introspection and devote time to the study of the suttas, devotion and the practice of generosity (dana) were considered to be the domain of a lay person's religious observance. From the beginning, Buddhist cultures were therefore conditioned to associate religious practice with benevolence and the exercise of good works rather than with a set of beliefs and articles of faith. The Mahayana introduction of the Bodhisattva ideal helped to reinforce this outlook.
Throughout its development within eastern cultures, from the pragmatic Chinese to the animistic Tibetans, Buddhism often underwent drastic philosophical and psychological adaptation to suit established local folklore and custom but two elements remained the same: an emphasis on being a good person and, if you were a monk or nun, a knowledge of the teachings and, for those inclined that way, the practice of meditation. It is important to remember this ancient emphasis on non violence, adaptation, mindful understanding and quiet reflection in the practice of this religion; and the absence of dogma and messianic fervour when we consider the special problems and opportunities associated with the propagation of Buddhism in western cultures.
Although in its traditional eastern setting, Buddhism's non assertive, gentle attitude often won it converts (no Buddhist culture has ever waged a religious war), this also sometimes proved to be its undoing in the face of other, more militant religious or ideological movements with which it came in contact. This too needs to be considered, particularly when we study the arrival of Buddhism in apartheid South Africa.

Buddhism in the western world

Characteristically, western interest in Buddhism started as an intellectual pursuit with philosophers like Schopenhauer and Bergson. Before them, western culture tended to hold the view that its values were superior to anything the rest of the world had to offer. It took two World Wars to shake us loose from this belief.
A counter-culture developed against the excesses and dehumanising qualifies of our technological consumer society. The horrors of the war in Vietnam added yet further impetus, particu-larly amongst the young, to search for a more meaningful, deeply human philosophy devoid of dogma (scientific as well as religious), self destructive tendencies and outmoded beliefs. Para-doxically, scientific discovery, often thought of as the generator of much of what was wrong in our society, particularly in the field of nuclear physics, started to change our view of reality dra-matically, one that meshed more comfortably with ancient eastern intuitive concepts of what is true and real than the religious notions with which the average westerner had been brought up.
In many ways, Buddhism, being non theistic, represents a radically different world view compared to the theistic religions it meets up with in the western world. This presents a number of advantages and disadvantages in disseminating it. To the sceptical and disgruntled nominal Christian, the agnostic, libertarian or Marxist, the absence of a creator God and an everlasting soul in Buddhism, and its emphasis on self reliance in one's pursuit of spiritual emancipation, for instance, is a refreshing alternative to obedience to an unquestioned divine authority and dependence on a Saviour or priest for one's salvation. To a born again Christian, orthodox Jew or fundamentalist Muslim, these characteristics of Buddhism simply disqualify it as a religion.
As had happened before in countries like China, Japan and Tibet, western cultures were beginning to be influenced by Buddhist insights into the nature of human existence and man's rela-tionship with the world he lives in. It is in this context that we must see the advance of Buddhism in the western world and, for that matter, in South Africa.

The history of Buddhism in South Africa

The Buddhist faith as practised in South Africa is an adopted religion. Unlike the Christian, Jewish, Hindu and Muslim forms of belief which arrived in this country when people practising these faiths settled in South Africa from elsewhere and continued to pass their religion onto their offspring and often engaged in missionary and proselytizing activities in an effort to gain a larg-er following for their religion, the first sizeable conversion to the Buddhist religion occurred amongst the Hindu population in the early 1920's. There is no evidence that there were any prac-tising Buddhists amongst the Indian indentured labourers employed to work in the cane fields of Natal in the latter part of the nineteenth century. Nor, for that matter, are there known to have been any amongst the Chinese workers employed by the mines in the Transvaal at about the same time. I will discuss below the reasons for this conversion from Hinduism to Buddhism in more detail. Here it is my intention to give a general overview of the mechanisms that were at work when, Buddhism started to gain a foothold in South African society.
As will be explained, the adoption of he Buddhist religion by Hindus in Natal was, on the face of it, a political decision. But it had much to do with establishing an authentic identity for themselves and unburdening themselves from inherited and adopted Hindu traditions, both religious and cultural, that seemed to them to add unnecessary difficulties to an already repressive situation in their adopted country. These early Hindu converts therefore intuited correctly the Buddhist idea that a religion should first and foremost bring out the nobility of being human, rather than merely encouraging one to adhere to a set of customary beliefs and observances.
Similar sentiments motivated increasing numbers of whites to adopt the religion. There were some isolated individuals who had developed an interest in Buddhism but it was only during the 1970's that deliberate attempts were made to promote the religion, particularly with the establishment of the Buddhist Institute of South Africa and the opening of the Buddhist Retreat Centre in Ixopo, Natal. Soon thereafter other groups, specialising in particular traditional eastern brands of Buddhism, like Tibetan Vajrayana or Japanese or Korean Zen, became active, each with their own characteristic methods of presenting and promoting their philosophical outlook and meeting with different responses from the South African public.
The arrival of Buddhism at that time coincided with one of the worst periods in apartheid South Africa. This of necessity coloured the way the religion was looked upon by the authorities and the public and expressed itself in the way it was able to promote itself. This too will be discussed further.
A fairly recent phenomenon has been the development of culture bound Buddhist communities such as the ambitious Taiwanese temple complex in Bronkhorstspruit by the Fo Kuang Shan organisation based in Taiwan and, on a more modest scale, a Burmese Buddhist monastic settlement in Pietermaritzburg established by the Myanmar Buddhist Association, composed of about 50 Burmese families in Natal.
Interest in Buddhist philosophy in South Africa remains a predominantly white person's concern. The possible reasons for this will be discussed below but here it is appropriate to mention that the lack of response on the part of blacks is not peculiar to South Africa. Proportionately, blacks participating in Buddhist activities in the USA, for instance, represent a minuscule percent-age compared with their white counterparts.
We may now look in some detail at the way Buddhism has fared alongside its fellow religions and amongst the various population groups in South Africa.

Buddhism and South Africans

The Hindu community

A small community of Hindus, mostly of Tamil origin living in Natal in the early 1920's, had come to hear of a revival of Buddhism in their country of origin where it had been virtually absent for five centuries or more. Ironically, although the founder of the religion, Siddhartha Gautama, was born in India and although Buddhism at the time of Ashoka had been the dominant religion in that country, various factors such as economic hardships, internal decay, but particularly intolerance and persecution from other faiths and, finally, absorption of the philosophy's popular principles into Brahmanism and Hinduism, had ensured that hardly a trace of this great religion was left in the country of its origin from the seventeenth century onward. By then, of course, it had firmly established itself in neighbouring countries.
The revival of Buddhism in India coincided with a profound search for identity amongst the numerous population and language groups, castes and classes, and adherents of a multitude of faiths and beliefs that constitute this immensely complex society. After centuries of domination by foreign powers particularly the British Raj India was in need of redefining itself; it went in search of its soul . It was inevitable that India would rediscover its Buddhist past which, to a great number of intellectuals, coincided with one of its finest periods in its history. What appealed particularly to those who abhorred the way Indian society was fractured and debased by its traditional caste system was that Buddhism, unlike Hinduism, had always aimed at an egalitarian so-ciety with equal status and rights for men and women and people from all strata of society.
Even though they were now in a different country, the iniquities of caste division had pursued the Hindus who had arrived in Natal from their home country from the middle of the nine-teenth. century onwards. This, they felt particularly those belonging to the lower castes only exacerbated an increasingly difficult situation in South Africa where they were already suffering from racial discrimination and political amputation and numerous occupational, residential and educational restrictions through relentlessly applied apartheid policies.
But whereas it proved impossible to remove their political problems, some Hindus decided they were at least free to abandon self-imposed ones. Prominently amongst these was their inter-nal division into castes, which predisposed them to additional restrictions as to where they were supposed to live, what kind of work they should be doing, whom they could marry, etc. To such Hindus, conversion to casteless, classless Buddhism seemed a logical step to take.
In addition to freedom from caste restrictions, many of these Hindus felt that Buddhism would give them more respectability in the eyes of European society around them as they believed that Buddhism's lack of deity worship would make them more acceptable to their Christian superiors. This view too was imported from mainland India where, in association with the resurrection of Buddhism, a so called "self-respect" movement had sprung up which aimed at removing from Indian culture beliefs and practices considered to be primitive and superstitious and not in keeping with a modern, rational, scientific" outlook.
Conversion to Buddhism by these Hindus was therefore driven as much by a desire to acquire a degree of self determination and human dignity as it was by the wish to adopt a religious base that was perceived to be in keeping with the difficult conditions in which they found themselves. In addition, these early Indian Buddhists performed as much philanthropic work within their own poverty stricken community as their wretched circumstances would permit all eminent, traditional Buddhist qualities.
At its height, during the 1930's, these ex Hindu Buddhists constituted less than 1% of the total Indian population (about 400 families). The movement stabilised over the next 40 years to about 100 families and then gradually declined until today there are only a few nominal Indian Buddhist followers left. There are many reasons for the failure of these early Indian Buddhists to attract more followers (Van Loon 1979).
A major challenge to their movement was an alternative choice available to Hindus: conversion to the Christian faith. Although to many Indians this seemed to be a betrayal of their own culture and traditions, Pentecostal churches were increasingly successful in attracting large numbers of Hindus into their fold. The poorly organised Indian Buddhists proved to be no match for the more experienced and better funded, vigorous, European led Christian missionary movements.
Another development that acted against these early Buddhists was that it was too narrowly based: it appealed mostly to lower caste Indians. What made matters worse is that, ironically, or-thodox Brahmanism considers that any Indian converting to a casteless religion like Buddhism loses his status in Indian society altogether, making himself in effect an outcast or "untoucha-ble" a stigma considerably worse than being a member even of the lowest caste. This, obviously, was not an inviting prospect to anyone contemplating becoming a Buddhist. So, what was con-sidered to be an attractive proposition removing oneself from a position of social inferiority became a liability to the movement: becoming a Buddhist meant you became a misfit in the eyes of your fellow Hindus. In any case, in time, the stigma of caste amongst South African Indians became less pronounced, nullifying this issue altogether.
Another factor that undermined the Indian Buddhist movement was that it was too secular. All religions thrive on spiritual authority: on priests, gurus, swamis and holy men. These early Buddhist Societies were run by sincere and dedicated men and women but they were lay folk, they lacked the status, seniority and prestige that can be accorded only to ordained Buddhist monks. This proved to be a major problem in attracting larger numbers of people to the religion.
Because the number of Indian Buddhist remained so small, Buddhist men generally had no option but to marry women with a Hindu background to whom, traditionally, most domestic reli-gious observances tended to be entrusted. With little or no instruction in how to do this (their ex Hindu husbands did not know much better themselves), it was inevitable that the religious rites conducted by these amateur Buddhists became infiltrated by the devotional practices they were most familiar with: Hindu rituals The result was that, in time, the Indian Buddhist movement was by and large swallowed up in the religious tradition from which it had arisen as had, in fact, happened in India before.

Other Asiatic communities

At various times, people of Asian descent other than India settled in South Africa for various reasons and may or may not have brought with them a Buddhist presence. This can present some unexpected complications. For instance, some sailors of Vietnamese descent were captured in Durban harbour at the outbreak of the second World War and interred in camps for the dura-tion of the war where some of them died. Some 40 years later the French government decided to commemorate these war victims with a memorial service held at a cemetery on the outskirts of Durban where these Vietnamese citizens had been buried in unmarked graves. Not knowing what religion these people had been practising, it was agreed to conduct the ceremony according to both Roman Catholic and Buddhist religious rites ...
Similar problems exist in ascertaining whether other Asiatics, such as the early Chinese mine labourers, or the small Japanese communities (if there were any practising Buddhist amongst them at all), were able to maintain or promote their religion in the past and what problems or opportunities they may have encountered. I shall therefore concentrate on more recent develop-ments in this respect.
The most prominent amongst these is the establishment of the ambitious Fo Kuang Shan cultural centre and temple complex in Bronkhorstspruit. It came about as a result of the decision by the Bronkhorstspruit Town Council to offer Taiwanese businessmen and industrialists investment opportunities in the area. Part of the proposition was that the Taiwanese would settle as a community in the area and build their own Buddhist temple and monastic training centre.
The first families arrived in 1992 and soon started to construct a huge temple complex, incorporating a luxurious guest house and a school complex. At first the predominantly Afrikaans community in this Gauteng town were, understandably, somewhat apprehensive about having this alien community and their strange religion in their midst. But the Taiwanese soon endeared themselves to them when they turned out to be such gentle people, did not compete with them, kept largely to themselves and provided employment for the local community in the factories they established in the area.
The temple and monastic training centre were meant to provide a home from ho¬me cultural and religious environment for the settlers, to be run by their own Taiwan trained monks and nuns, as well as a place from where the ideals of the Fo Kuang Shan sect could be propagated in Africa. The sect belongs to a popular movement in Buddhism called by the generic title of Pure Land Buddhism. Although this form of Buddhism had its origins in India and aspects of it can be found in most forms of popular Buddhism, it is today more specifically associated with some forms of Japanese and Chinese Buddhism. It maintains that the simple lay person, following an ordinary everyday life style, can follow a spiritual method in his search for liberation from suffering and Enlightenment that is as effective as becoming a monk or nun. This method calls on the strength of one's faith and devotion and the performance of good works rather than on one's intellect and introspective skills.
It is believed that there are great Beings of Enlightenment, called Bodhisattvas, who, through their boundless compassion and transcendent abilities are able to reward anyone who has ac-quired sufficient "merit" to enter an ideal, auspicious mode of existence in a so called "Pure Land" which has been miraculously created by the Bodhisattvas to help all those who cannot, be-cause of their circumstances and past karma achieve, by their own powers, liberation from daily toil, mortality and suffering. Entry into such a heavenly "Pure Land" is by the grace of the Bo-dhisattva and is acquired not only upon one's death, but is increasingly foreshadowed in one's earthly existence in the form of fortuitous circumstances and happy incidents, the extent of which depends on how much merit one is able to garner through generous acts towards one's fellow human beings and through worship of the Bodhisattvas.
This form of Buddhism proved particularly attractive to the multitudes in China and Japan. One form of the Pure Land faith, the Fo Kuang Shan, has massive support in Taiwan. It is in the process of establishing a temple complex on each continent, the one in Bronkhorstspruit being intended to serve the continent of Africa. The ambition is to train local people to become monks and nuns of the order who will then set up their own satellite temples within their own communities and promote the faith amongst ordinary citizens with the intention to create Pure Land hap-piness for all in the here and now as well as in the hereafter.
Recruitment of potential monks started two years ago for an initial two years' training program after which further training periods of five and ten years would have to be undertaken in order to become a fully fledged senior Fo Kuang Shan monk or nun. The first recruits were 20 blacks from Zaire and other countries to the north of South Africa. They are required to learn Chi-nese, write Chinese calligraphy, wear Chinese clothes, memorise Chinese chants, practise Kung Fu and, of course, accept the theology of Pure Land Buddhism.
It is not difficult to understand why there is such a high dropout rate and that there are very few non Chinese members of the Fo Kuang Shan movement. A more recent setback suffered by this community is the termination, initiated by South Africa, of diplomatic relations with Taiwan. This has all but halted further investment into the South African project by Fo Kuang Shan dev-otees in Taiwan. In addition, the South African government has refused to grant permanent residence status to Taiwanese citizens wishing to settle in the country and build their homes and fac-tories here.
It is still to early to assess how successful this overtly missionary movement will eventually be in Africa but evidence so far indicates that it seems altogether too grandiose, too cul-ture bound, and its articles of faith too foreign and difficult to integrate into a modern western or, for that matter, African cultural environment.
On a more unassuming scale, the small Burmese community in Natal have recently organised themselves into the Myanmar Buddhist Association which owns a suburban house in Pieter-maritzburg which has been converted into a guest house and meditation hall. The intention is to invite a succession of Burmese monks to take up residence there and provide the community with a traditional Burmese religious focus. Such authentic Buddhist centres, where they have been established elsewhere in the world, have often attracted people not belonging to the nationality of the resident monks. It seems to depend on how modest in scale the movement manages to remain and how accommodating it is to the cultural norms of its host country.

The white community

As can be expected, by far the greatest number of Buddhists in South Africa are whites. The 1951 census report counted 46 white Buddhists, the 1970 census 2 254; the 1980 census 10 780. Since 1980 various Buddhist societies and centres have sprung up and it will be interesting to see what increase in the number of Buddhists has happened as a result when the report on the recent census becomes available. It could well be in the region of 30 000 and growing rapidly.
The most important recent event in the propagation of Buddhism in he country was the establishment of the Buddhist Retreat Centre in Ixopo, Natal, in 1980. It is established on 300 acres of beautiful country side where various workshops, seminars and meditation retreats are held throughout the year, led by both local and overseas teachers. These range from traditional meditation retreats held in complete silence, to workshops in art, ecology, philosophy and psychology. This centre, although essentially based on Theravada (early, traditional) Buddhism, has promoted all forms of the religion, including Zen and Tibetan Vajrayana.
Shortly after the Buddhist Retreat Centre started to function other centres opened in other parts of the country, each with a specific cultural outlook. There are now therefore a number of Tibetan Buddhist centres belonging to a variety of Vajrayana sects, Korean and Japanese Zen and Nichiren Shoshu groups, as well as traditional Theravada communities.
None of these groups engage in active membership or missionary campaigns. Some, like the Buddhist Retreat Centre, do not even offer any membership or advertise their programmes. This low key promotion of the religion, principally by word of mouth, seems to suit the mentality of the average westerner looking for an alternate philosophy of life. It appeals to them that such a profound spiritual path is not presented with the usual messianic urgency and fervour.
Buddhism appeals to people in search of additional dimensions of spirituality in their rives. What attracts them is that in adopting Buddhist principles they embrace a deeply humanitarian ethic but can, if they wish, remain loyal to the religion they have been brought up with. This is because Buddhism does not question or compete with the theistic propositions implicit in other faiths. Being non theistic, questions of a creator deity or the existence of the soul, for instance, are of little relevance in Buddhist thought. The emphasis in Buddhism is, always, to encourage the nobility of being human to flower forth in one's life. And even that is not considered to be a dogma ...
Radical conversion to Buddhism, of course, does take place. But there are probably more people in South Africa who have, to a greater or lesser extent, adopted Buddhist principles in their life but would not necessarily call themselves Buddhist. This may well be a unique feature associated with the growth of Buddhism in the western world generally, namely, that it is increasingly being integrated into a general world view, coexisting easily with other religious and philosophical traditions as well as modern science.

The black community

As already mentioned, Buddhism seems to have very little relevance to blacks in South Africa, at least at the present moment. One of the Tibetan Buddhist movements at one stage thought that there was a possible connection between traditional African primal beliefs and the type of Tantric Buddhism practised in Vajrayana, but this has not materialised. Hence, even Tibetan Buddhism is predominantly supported by whites in South Africa. Only the Fo Kuang Shan movement actively recruits blacks for monastic training, but here too success has been very limited.
The reasons for the lack of interest in Buddhism amongst the black community are not difficult to find. Firstly, blacks have other concerns on their mind at the moment (and have had for a long time) ones that deal more directly with their immediate physical well being. Secondly, they already have a spectrum of religious options available that satisfies a large range of spiritual and psychological needs, from adopting any of the mainline Christian faiths or belonging to one of the many Zionist or Independent Churches, to adhering to their traditional beliefs. Many blacks incorporate a combination of these religious practices in their daily life.
From what has been discussed so far, it is clear that Buddhism does not fit all that naturally into the present black social or religious mentality. For too many it is too foreign to their accus-tomed ways of thinking; too intellectual, philosophical and introspective. This, of course, may be too general an observation, but it is one that takes into account the economic, educational and social amputations blacks suffered during past apartheid policies. As these deprivations are overcome, and as blacks embrace a larger cultural and intellectual universe, they are bound to come across other philosophical and religious ideas that may appeal to them. This has already happened on a few occasions when blacks in the forefront of political and intellectual issues in this country have come to explore Buddhist thought where that may give fresh insights into their particular field of interest.
The future will show whether this will ever become a major development in South Africa. There is no doubt that Buddhism fits in extremely well with the concept of ubuntu: the traditional African sense of belonging to and caring for a larger community, a deeply felt connectedness with another person's needs and expectations. It is interesting to note that the various Buddhist groups in South Africa have intuitively responded to the physical needs of the black communities with whom they are in contact in a spirit of ubuntu. The Buddhist Retreat Centre, for instance, has been instrumental in getting a school complex and a craft centre built for the black township dwellers in their neighbourhood. So, although there are few philosophical points of contact be-tween Buddhism and the black community at the ,present moment, there is as much connection as is religiously meaningful: at the level of our common humanity and as a shared concern for our mutual well being.

Conclusion

The propagation of Buddhism in South Africa has had its own peculiar problems and opportunities. They range from Hindus wishing to rid themselves of caste stigma but lacking the reli-gious leadership to sustain their movement; whites embracing a philosophy that seems so relevant to modern western issues and concerns; Burmese and Chinese settlers importing their tradition-al Buddhist practices; and blacks finding a connection with the culture of ubuntu. It is probable that, in time, some of these dynamics will prove irrelevant. Yet others will disappear. Some will merge or overlap, producing a kind of "Rainbow Buddhism" which will have a characteristic South African flavour. In addition, there is no doubt that some Buddhist groups will continue to adhere more or less strictly to the eastern cultures from which they have originated.
What is sure also is that an exciting new religious dimension came into being with the birth of the new, democratic South Africa. Gone are the days when the fledgling Buddhist movement was being suspected of being a subversive communist cell on the assumption that because Chinese restaurants tended to display fat "Laughing Buddhas", and because the Chinese were com-munists, therefore people who called themselves Buddhists were communists in disguise. This may now sound comical but the early meditation retreats held at the Buddhist Retreat Centre (it insisted on being multiracial from its inception) were in fact regularly infiltrated by undercover government agents who, incidently, stood out like sore thumbs in an effort to uncover com-munist spooks ...
Those were the days too when South Africa witnessed the spectacle of a Buddhist nun belonging to a Japanese Pure Land sect undertaking a long protest march and hunger strike lasting 40 days outside St George's Cathedral in Cape Town, calling for the release of children held in political detention. Or when a Buddhist couple, Lama Anagarika and Li Gotami Govinda, both world renowned authors and artists, ran the risk of imprisonment when they visited the country in 1974 because of the Immorality Act, he being German and she a Parsi by birth. Or when a young Buddhist, on the "rounds of conscience and religious conviction, objected to serving in the South African army. Initially denied exemption because Buddhism, being non theistic, could not be considered a "godsdiens" ie a "true religion" as then legally defined, he had his case heard in the Supreme Court in Bloemfontein where a review of the case acknowledged that although Buddhists do not necessarily believe in a personal or creator God, it was undeniable that their faith was as much a religion as Christianity, Judaism, Islam or Hinduism. We have come a long way since then......

References

Mookerji, R 1972. Asoka. Motilal Banarsidass, Delhi 1972

Van Loon, LH 1979. The Indian Buddhist community in South Africa: its historical origins and socio religious attitudes and practices. Unpublished paper.
 
 

 
 
 
Zen and the Art of Living
Heila Downey JDPSN, Poep Kwang Sa


Zen means understanding my TRUE SELF "WHO AM I?" Everyone says: "I AM" but Descartes said: "I THINK THEREFORE I AM!" We always say "I", but what is this "I' When we are born, where does it come from when we die, where does it go? Quite possibly these are the two most important questions that we could ever ask. If we 100% attain this then we attain the whole UNIVERSE because this "I" is our UNIVERSAL SUBSTANCE - our TRUE NATURE, our BEFORE THINKING SUBSTANCE! However if we are attached to"I", then we are attached to life and death. So to attain true liberation, we need to let go of all attachments and moment to moment attain CORRECT SITUATION, CORRECT FUNCTION and CORRECT RELATION-SHIP. This is correct life! This is ZEN AND THE ART OF LIVING!
Zen teaching is very, very simple and not dependent on "I" it is also not dependent on words and speech or on the sutras. It is not dependent on coming or going, or on space and time. It is not dependent on Buddha. Zen is not even dependent on ZEN! It points directly at our TRUE NATURE. It has no road, no map! Your practice, your life, for the benefit of all beings. If you take a bicycle to Durban, not only will it take very long but only you arrive at your destination! Zen PRACTICE is like taking an aircraft to Durban. You get on the plane, and BOOM you and ALL beings arrive in Durban together. You and all beings together attain liberation. But if we want to ride on this plane, moment to moment don't make anything - then you yourself will realize that you and all beings are already complete. Very simple!
<Hold up stick>: DO YOU SEE?
<Hit table>: DO YOU HEAR?
When you see, when you hear, when you taste and when you touch everything is TRUTH - LIKE THIS! This is Zen!
This paper is entitled "ZEN AND THE ART OF LIVING", but this is already a BIG mistake this creates opposites mind, and it can thus be understood that there is ZEN and LIVING! In fact it should have been called ZEN IS THE ART OF LIVING! Zen is our life.
When you are thinking your mind and my mind are separate. But, when you cut off (HIT TABLE) all thinking your mind and my mind BOOM! 100% become one. In that instant your substance, this stick substance, my substance Buddha's substance, God substance .... completely become one. Unfortunately, when thinking appears then "I" appears. When "I' appears oppo-sites world appears. Good bad! Subject object! Happiness sadness! So, if we to want to understand our TRUE NATURE, we must attain our TRUE Substance, which is the substance of every-thing which is before speech.
So sharing with you by using speech and words is already a problem. SUBSTANCE means ABSOLUTE. In absolute there are no opposites, but our speech and words create opposites thinking. In the instant that we say: ABSOLUTE it is no longer absolute' The moment we say: SUBSTANCE, it is no longer substance. A whole world of opposites created by speech and words !
A Zen Master once said: "EVEN MENTIONING BUDDHA, IS LIKE DUMPING DUNG ON YOUR HEAD!" This saying demonstrates the same point. TRUE SUBSTANCE, TRUE NA-TURE, AND TRUTH are beyond speech and words. But in this world many people dc understand this point, small wonder then that there is so much suffering!
Another eminent Teacher once said: "True form has no words. Truth is unmoving." If you open your mouth, you are reliant on speech and words, so TRUTH has already slipped through your fingers. Words and speech cannot show us our True nature. Everything in this world the sun, the moon, the stars, mountains, rivers and trees everything is constantly moving. But there is one thing that never moves. It never comes, it never goes. It is not born, and it never dies. Then what is this not-moving thing? If we find this, we will find our True Self, our True Life and attain our Universal substance. But, understanding cannot help us even 100 PhD's will not show us our True Nature. If we were to read all 84 000 Sutras, memorize all Buddha's speech, and study the teaching of ALL Zen Masters of the past and present....still, attaining our True self will allude us.
One day Jo Ju asked Master Nam Cheon: "What is the true way?" Nam Cheon replied: "Everyday mind is the true way." Jo Ju said: "Then should I try to keep it?" Nam Cheon replied: "If you try to keep it, you are already mistaken." Most concerned, Jo Ju said: "If I don't try to keep it, how can I understand the True way?" Nam Cheon replied: "The True way is not dependent on understanding nor not understanding. Understanding is an illusion, not understanding is blankness. If you completely attain the True way of not thinking, it is clear like space, clear and void. So why make right and wrong?" Jo Ju heard these words and woke up!
So attaining our True nature is not dependent on any understanding, explanation, or academic attainments. NO concept can ever express it. Zen continuously points directly to mind, so we can wake up and become Buddha. In the sutras this is called: "A SPECIAL TRANSMISSION OUTSIDE THE SUTRAS." No sutra can GIVE us this point, this attainment. Sutras can only EX-PLAIN it, and often this vitally important point is misunderstood. Using intellectual understanding to find our True nature, is like entering a restaurant and eating the menu instead of the meal. The true way of Zen is: HERE IS A TOMATO, OPEN MOUTH AND EAT!
Dok Sahn was very famous throughout China for his knowledge of the Diamond Sutra. He never travelled anywhere without carrying the sutra with him.
One day he heard that some monks in a southern temple only sat facing the wall and slept yet they still got enlightenment. Dok Sahn thought this to be totally crazy and exclaimed that they did not understand Buddha's teaching, actions or mind. So how can they get enlightenment? He then set off to go and teach them the Diamond Sutra.
After walking south for several hundred mile, he decided to take a rest at a little tea house one afternoon. The owner, a little old lady was very honoured to have him stop at her tea house. So, after bowing to the great master, she asked him where he was going? He replied that he was going to the south, because at a temple in the south, the monks only sat facing the wall, slept, and still got enlightenment. So he was going to this temple to hit them, wake them up and teach them the Diamond Sutra.
The old lady thought this to be very wonderful, and suggested that she would like to ask him a question. If he should be able to answer her question, she would give him lunch free of charge. If he could not answer, then he would have to pay!
Dok Sahn got real angry, and reminded her that she was speaking to the famous Diamond Sutra Master, and that she was welcome to ask him any question as his knowledge of the Diamond Sutra was unparalleled throughout China.
She then said: "The Diamond Sutra says: 'Past mind cannot get you enlightenment, present mind cannot get you enlightenment, future mind cannot get you enlightenment.' So with what kind of mind will you eat your lunch?"
Dok Sahn's jaw just dropped, his face turned red he was stuck!
Then the old lady said, "You've studied the Diamond Sutra for ten years, yet you cannot answer this question, how then will you teach the sleeping monks of the South?"
There are many misconceptions about the nature of Zen Teaching and practice. As we have seen Zen points directly to our minds. This emphasis of direct attainment of mind, rather than conceptual and the intellectual, often creates the misunderstanding that Zen is anti intellectual, which of course is not correct. Rather than being attached to intellectual interpretations of sutras and words, Zen points us directly to the questions: How do you use words, how do you use speech correctly, how do you live your life does your life and direction help this suffering world?
Zen practice often requires rigorous periods of formal training, depending on our conditioning and circumstances, and this training can create fertile ground so to speak, enabling our True Nature to burst forth, then correct function of speech and words can appear, opening us to the direct wonder of correct life.
As is evident in this venerable audience today, we all know that there are many traditions and styles of practice, just as there are many different ways of eating. Some use a knife and fork, some chopsticks, some spoons or simply their fingers many different techniques. What is most important is not which form is correct or not correct, rather is your hunger satisfied?
Likewise in Zen we use many different styles of practice availing ourselves the use of different tools to attain the correct way. In The Kwan Um School of Zen, we use bow-ing/prostrations, chanting, walking, sitting Zen, as well as Kong ans and working Zen, during our formal training periods emphasizing the very important fact that everything we do is ZEN! If we do not make Zen Meditation special, then we can see that nothing is excluded from our practice, and that every day life of shopping, playing tennis, eating walking, driving, talking are all tools enabling us to experience our True nature. Unfortunately, many times students get attached to sitting Zen meditation, and think that "correct" Zen is dependent on some kind of extreme samurai training ... we call this ZEN SICKNESS.
A long time a go a monk entered the monastery of a very famous Zen Master, where it is said he was determined to sit in zazen until he attained final awakening - enlightenment. Having noticed this monk sitting very diligently for many weeks, and not being asked for an interview - the Zen Master approached him one day and asked him what he was doing? The monk answered that he was sitting to attain enlightenment! Upon hearing this the Zen Master produced a roof tile from behind his back and started polishing it with his sleeve. The monk looked on in amaze-ment, and eventually asked the Zen Master what he was doing ? The Zen Master answered that he was polishing the tile into a mirror. The monk exclaimed that surely this was impossible? Yes! The Zen Master replied, and it is just like you trying to attain enlightenment by sitting facing a wall! It is said that upon hearing this the monk attained full awakening.
If we are attached to OUR form of practice, in fact if we are attached to anything this is a BIG problem, because holding or attaching to any style or idea about meditation, can be a hin-drance. One of the techniques/forms of teaching which is unique to formal Zen training, and is often a misunderstood practice, is the use of Kong ans (Jap: Koan Ch: Kung an). In China as in Korea and in Japan, when needing to authenticate an important document, the documents would be laid side by side, and a red seal or "chop" was placed on the join then separated. At a later stage, to check the authenticity of the said documents, the seal would be laid side by side and matched. Similarly in Zen, a student brings his/her understanding to a teacher the student's under-standing of a said question/Kong an is one half of the seal, and should match that of the teacher which is the other half. During the T'ang and Sung Dynasties in China, many Great Zen Masters appeared and stories of their enlightenment experiences, Dharma combat and Talks, were often written clown and gathered into collections. These situations or "Cases" were then used by other Masters to test the minds of their students, as indeed the minds of other Zen Masters! When the teacher and student share the same attainment this is called transmission from mind to mind . So Kong ans can aid us to attain this 'seal' in our everyday life. Then what is this seal of correct life?
A Monk once asked Zen master Un Mun: 'What is Buddha?" Un Mun replied: "Dry shit on a stick!"
Someone asked Zen Master Dok Sahn: "What is Buddhism?" He replied: "Spring comes, the grass grows by itself".
So what does this mean? If we attain this point, then we attain the meaning of Kong an, the meaning of Truth, the meaning of correct life, the meaning of ZEN! Kong ans only point to the truth. Not my truth or even your truth only TRUTH LIKE THIS! <Hit table> The fundamental question that arises though, is how do we use Kong an to wake up this world, and save all be-ings from suffering? Because, if this practice cannot help this world, we would call it dead attainment, dead practice useless garbage. Although many of the traditional stories and Kong ans are themselves 100's of years old, they ALL point directly to human life situations that we to this day repeat over and over again in our own rives. They help us to cure the sickness of attachment to thinking. They aid us in putting down OUR opinions, OUR condition and OUR situation, attaining CORRECT SITUATION, FUNCTION AND RELATIONSHIP the name for this is COR-RECT LIFE and moment to moment JUST DO IT!
Though for the purpose of this talk many words are used, Zen does not explain anything, Zen does not analyse anything. It merely points directly to mind so that we can wake up, attain our True self and true liberation (often referred to as enlightenment) True liberation is not special, but unfortunately human beings have the capacity to make many things special, difficult and complicated and especially so, when we want to "ATTAIN" something.
A long time ago in Korea, lived a very famous Buddhist layman called Busol. He was a deeply enlightened man, and so was his wife, son and daughter.
One day a man came to Busol, and asked him, "Is Zen difficult or not?"
Busol said, "Oh. It's very difficult . It is like hitting the moon with a stick!"
This man was puzzled, because he thought if Zen is SO difficult, then how did Busol's wife attain enlightenment? So he went and asked her the same question, to which she answered, "It's the easiest thing in the world. It is just like washing your face in the morning."
Very confused, this man thought: "I don't understand. Is Zen easy, is it
difficult who is right?" So he asked the son who replied, "Not easy, not difficult. On the tips of a thousand blades of grass you will find the Patriarchs' meaning."
Thoroughly confused, he resorted to asking the daughter. After explaining his line of questioning, and the respective answers from the rest of her family, the daughter replied, "If you make difficult, it is difficult. If you make easy, it is easy. But if you cut off all thinking and don't think, the truth is just as it is. Then she said' "How are you keeping your mind right now?" Not knowing how to answer and completely at a loss for words he was stuck , so the daughter hit him on the head and said, "Where is difficult and easy now?" He completely understood Zen is just as it is.
The point of this story is, that if we "think" difficult we have difficult! If we "think" easy we have easy. NOT DIFFICULT OR EASY, then what? Go drink some water, then YOU your-self will understand whether it is hot or cold!
Many people have questions about life, mind, consciousness and death. To attain the answers to these questions we must keep a mind that is clear like space, clear like a bright shiny mirror, then when RED comes in front of this mirror, only RED . White appears ...only white. Then YOU can reflect the universe exactly as it is. The name for this point is TRUTH LIKE THIS and believe in yourself 100%.
Let us return to Un Mun Zen Master's DRY SHIT ON A STICK for a moment: In olden times in Chinese temples the monks made a compost of human and animal waste, mixing them to-gether for several weeks before being used as fertilizer. The monks urinated and defecated into large buckets placed underneath wooden benches in an outhouse. A long flat paddle was used to stir and mix the waste together with ash. At the end of the day the stick would be left out to dry in the sun. On this particular day, Un Mun Zen Master had just relieved himself and was walking out of the toilet. Just at that moment a monk approached him and said: "What is Buddha?" The Zen Master's eye happen to fall upon the "shit stick" leaning against the wall, so his immediate response: "dry shit on stick!" In that instant, Un Mun's mind and the shit stick became one 100%! Truth like this!
In our particular style of teaching we use two main forms of expression: METAPHYSICAL FUNCTION and CONCRETE FUNCTION. Both forms express the highest teaching as contained in the Heart Sutra: "FORM IS FORM EMPTINESS IS EMPTINESS." Metaphysical function means we simply reflect truth as it is, The sky is blue, the trees are green Red comes ... only RED! Our mind is like a great round mirror only reflect. Everything is "TRUTH LIKE THIS." When we see, when we hear, when we taste and when we touch ALL IS TRUTH LIKE THIS! However, sometimes it is not appropriate to only reflect truth as it is as it cannot help this world. For instance, if someone comes to your door and says they are hungry and thirsty, telling them that you too are hungry and thirsty would neither be correct nor helpful!
Nowadays our society is very complicated. Everything is changing very rapidly . How can our practice help this changing suffering world? Attaining "Truth Like This", can only be useful if we allow this truth to FUNCTION correctly. Attaining CORRECT SITUATION check, what is my situation? Attaining CORRECT FUNCTION what is my function in this situation, and lastly CORRECT RELATIONSHIP what is my relationship to this situation? When these three points become one, we attain our Universal Substance, Truth and Function in one spontaneous action that can benefit all beings. This is called Concrete Function. If we pay careful attention to every day life, we will notice that most situations demand complete function and complete action. For example: This is a glass. Someone says what is that? If I say: "Glass", you could say that I am attached to form. However if I say: "Not glass!" You could say I am attached to emptiness! So, is it a glass or not? How can you answer? You could say the sky is blue, and the trees are green but this is only TRUTH LIKE THIS! Just in this moment what is the situation, function and rela-tionship? So again I'll ask is this a glass or not? <drink> One pointed question, one pointed answer. Substance, truth and function come together in on instant! This is our true way, and correct life moment to moment keep clear mind and just do it. If we attain this point, then Zen is our life and understanding becomes just another tool, and even concrete and metaphysical function cease to exist.
This Zen teaching points directly at our no mind mind. So that is why in Zen, sutras are not necessary. All sutras and dharmas are wonderful pictures for showing a hungry man what a ba-nana looks like. If he is not attached to pictures, he will learn from them what a banana looks like, go and buy one himself, and eat it. Only eating this banana will take away his suffering; the pictures can not do this.
So if you have mind, you need sutras. But, if you have no mind, then what? An eminent Teacher said, "When mind appears. Dharma appears, when Dharma appears, name and form ap-pears. Like and dislike appears coming and going, sadness all appear. But when mind disappears, then Buddha disappears, name and form disappears, and when name and form disappears, like and dislike, happiness and sadness, coming and going all disappear."
When you have no mind, everything disappears. Then Buddha and sutras and Dharma are not necessary. These are only medicines for our thinking mind. This is Zen.
There is a very wonderful poem called "The human route", that aids us in the quest to find our original face our True Nature.


Coming empty-handed, going empty-handed - that is human.
When you are born, where do you come from?
When you die, where do you go?

Life is like a floating cloud which appears.
Death is like a floating cloud which disappears.
The floating cloud itself originally does not exist.
Life and death, coming and going, are also like that.

But there is one thing which always remains clear.
It is pure and clear, not depending on life and death.

Then what is the one pure and clear thing?

Then what is this one pure and clear thing? We must find that. That is the most important thing that we can do with our lives. If we attain this ONE thing we attain the Universe, then we can help this suffering world and save all beings from suffering. THIS is ZEN AND THE ART OF LIVING.
 
Discussion


Question: Can you tell us something about your centre, how many members it has and so on?

Downey: The Dharma Centre was founded about seventeen years ago and we have been very fortunate in that we worked very closely with other Buddhist schools. We tried to work together with the Kagyu group as well as the Rosebank Theravada group, but the Kagyu group was instructed by Akong Rimpoche to move aside from the very close interac-tion that we had, which entailed visiting each others' centres, listen to one anothers' teachings and get to know the respective traditions (I believe that this situation will be un-der review when Akong Rinpoche visits S.A. in March 1999). But we have managed to maintain a very close relationship with the Theravada group for some years now. Thankfully, for I believe that our relationship with this group has helped not only them, but also the Zen group to grow, and give us a better understanding of the Theravada teaching. We have the main temple in Robertson, where we do longer retreats. We also have an urban centre near Cape Town where we practice twice a week. Our fully paid-up membership is probably twenty. The people who receive our newsletter number about 120. The paid-up members really pull their weight: they are at all the retreats, all the ceremonies, all the dharma functions. Last week we finally achieved our dream of outreach. This started twelve years ago. We started a trust, and we had hoped that one day we would develop to the point that we could get off our cushions and do something in the community. One of our students who is HIV positive just bought a prop-erty outside Robertson, donated it to the Dharma Centre Trust, where we will now build a new temple and start an AIDS hospice. We also have a very close relationship with the Buddhist Retreat centre in Ixopo, in that we share visiting teachers with them. It is unfortunate that we have not yet established such a relationship with the Chinese and other groups.

Question: How do you organise your group and how do you maintain your international links?
Downey: We have a general meeting once a year to discuss policy matters, set membership dues and so on. Our teaching methodology is that of the Kwan Um school, which has about 167 branches all over the world. The Dharma Centre in Robertson is the head temple of the Kwan Um school in Africa. The founder of our school will be coming over in November to energise our practice.

Question: In the past you had a relationship with St Briavel's and worked with brain-injured children. Is that still the case?
Downey: We don't have a relationship with that group anymore, for where we are situated now in Robertson, it is much harder for people to come out to us than it was in Somerset West. But with this new temple we're building, we will have more residential facilities, and we hope to resume this work when we can offer accommodation to the children and their parents.

 
 
 
Fo Kuang Shan in Africa heritage and future plans Master Hui Li, Fo Kuang Shan
(interpreted from Chinese by Harold Lemke)


 
My name is Master Hui Li and I am from the Fo Kuang Shan order in Taiwan. This order was begun in 1967 by master Hsin Yun and it is an international Buddhist organisation. Presently we exist on all five continents and forty countries now have a Buddhist temple and disciples of our order.
We are a humanistic order and therefore we work very closely with the laypeople. We are not supported by any government organisation so we have to grow everything that we have, or for construction we get donations from our devotees. We are an educational organisation. We primarily have a line of educational institutions where we train people to be dharma teachers and for-mal masters. It is also a charitable organisation. We offer charity to local communities regardless of what religion they belong to.
The Fo Kuang Shan Buddhist order sent me to South Africa in 1992. The purpose of my coming here was to see to the development and support the development of Buddhism in all Afri-can countries. And I am very happy today to have the honour and privilege of meeting Heila, who is from the Buddhist Centre in Cape Town. What makes me so happy to see her is that when I arrived on this continent she was one of the first people I met.
When I arrived here in 1992, my hands were empty. And I remember standing on the intersection of the N4 and the R25 and looking at Bronkhorstspruit. And I remember at that time standing on the overpass and the town council had someone point out for me and said "that is the piece of land that we decided to donate to you" and when I looked at that piece of land it was just emptiness and there was nothing there.
Some of you might have been there recently and have seen that we have put up a structure since then and you can imagine the difficulties that entailed. My instructions on coming to Africa were to be responsible for spreading Buddhism in this continent, for our order. And Master Hsin Yun had already confirmed with the town council of Bronkhorstspruit that we would be getting six hectares of land to build on. So I looked at this vast piece of land and I thought, "How do I begin?"
When I arrived for the first time in Africa, South Africa, I had no concept of what this place was like. My only impression of South Africa was by looking at two videos called The Gods Must Be Crazy, so I assumed that as in that video people were still naked here. But we monks are very simple; we know that we do things for Buddhism, we do things for human beings. So I came here with this concept and this schedule. But as soon as I arrived on an American plane I looked at the environment and I saw that this is an extremely beautiful country. But it looks ex-tremely different from my experiences in Taiwan, there the temples too are extremely beautiful.
Since we don't have economic support coming from this continent, all our economic support must come from our devotees in Taiwan. To manage the finance of the building, every month I must go back to Taiwan, report, organise funds, come back here, organise the work that must be done. So I am usually in South Africa one week, or at most 10 days a month. The rest of the time I am either in Congo or Tanzania or Taiwan. I will explain a little later why I go to Tanzania.
What I would like to do now is to make a brief report of what I see as our goals and ideas on the work we are doing on this continent regarding the preaching of Buddhism. What we are doing here at the Unisa university is speaking together and meeting together, so it would be the first step towards our goal of spreading religion. And it is important for us here at this meeting to get to know each other, to understand what we all doing, and who we are. In this way we can support each other in each other's future development and plans.
And in principle I would like to say that our monastery is willing to offer its facilities to offer any support here who want to come to us and stay there, or if you need to use our facilities, please let us know. You're always welcome. I would also like to thank professor Krüger for asking me to come and speak today and to meet you people.
We have four goals. The first one is to complete construction of the Nan Hua monastery. Those of you who have been to our monastery can see that we are at the first stage. We have only completed stage one of the construction. The second structure that we are putting up there will be three times larger than what is presently there. We have recently rescheduled construction.
The reason why we slowed down is that in 1992 when we came here, the South African immigration policy was very easy. We had over one hundred of our devotees buy land surrounding Nan Hua Temple and they were planning on coming over as immigrants and living in that area. And then after 1994, things began to change, especially with the immigration policy and the new government of South Africa decided that instead of the R250 000 investment to come to South Africa for permanent residency it is now R1 500 000. Unfortunately most people who planned to come said "Well, for R1 500 000 I might as well go to New Zealand or Australia instead of South Africa". So many people, even though they bought the land and paid for it, they didn't immi-grate and they have just left the land there now but they still have title. So as you can see, without the devotees coming we didn't get as much support as we originally intended.
Before 1994 the government in Bronkhorstspruit was NP and they were extremely supportive of all kinds of projects and programmes with Taiwan. But the new ANC government, has dis-tanced itself from Taiwanese programmes and plans. The first problem which we stumbled upon concerns this land which had been donated to us. The new government no longer recognises the previous council, and that land is now in a state of limbo. We therefore had to change all our plans, especially the construction plan. At first this was a bit of a problem for us but although we had to change methods we are still continuing with our purpose, which is propagating Buddhism.
The second problem, which all of you are very familiar with is the problem of security in South Africa. In the past we had many people who were planning to come here, our devotees who were planning to come here, start factories, get involved in joint ventures and business, but now they are hearing so much bad information about security in this country that a lot of them are giving up on their initial intent, so again we don't have the devotees with us.
Just as an example, Nan Hua itself already has three combi's stolen and one hijacked. Two of our monks have been mugged, and they didn't like the feeling of a gun to their heads, so it is giving us a bit of a problem. Some of our devotees did come here, invested in factories, started businesses, and brought their families here. The number of these who have been robbed, have been beaten, have been murdered is very high compared to other countries.
There is a saying that we have in Chinese, which in English would be "the road to hell is paved with good intentions". It is sad that so many good intentions of the new government, that so many good plans, that so many great ideas of giving the people of this nation more freedom and more opportunities have in many ways turned out to be very difficult to keep in this country. People are complaining a great deal about the policy of not having executions, that so many people are being killed because crime is now out of control in this country. When we look at what is happening it makes us realise our responsibility as Buddhists. How we are here to educate and to support people in changing their views.
Now as we are a Chinese Buddhist order, the monastery and construction that is going on is mostly in the Chinese fashion. A lot of people are complaining. They said that we are in Africa and that we should use an African means of construction instead of using Chinese means. But since the donations come from Chinese people in Taiwan, it will only be appropriate to make something of this Chinese style so that we can actually show how the Chinese culture and the Chinese people are supporting the propagation of Buddhism.
Now although this is a new tree planted on the territory of Africa, it is still from old seeds, from ancient seeds, that is, from Chinese seeds that came over. Culture is something that needs to be exchanged. I am Chinese. I like people to know what my culture is and I present it to all people of all nations so that they can see what Chinese culture is about. But I am also opening up to appreciate the European flavour here, and the African and other flavours that we have in the many cultures of this country. I sometimes forget that culture belongs to certain people, I always assume that culture is something for all communities to share no matter who they are or where they came from. Buddhism doesn't belong to Buddhists, Christianity doesn't belong to Christians. All of them are from humanity, for humanity to own and for humanity to enjoy.
And you can imagine that trying to build a Chinese-style temple in Africa is very difficult, from the design, to having architectural drawings, to actual construction, it is very experimental. Those things that we couldn't have manufactured or couldn't find locally we had to import from Taiwan or from China. For example, when we decided what kind of tile we wanted for our roof, we realised that it would cost 100 000 US$ but to bring them into the country would also cost 100 000 US$. And then, all the artifacts that we wanted to present to the people of Africa, the bells, the statues, the drums, none of these could be manufactured locally, so we decided to bring over. As you may have noticed, we are now putting traditional Chinese gates around the temple. Now since we couldn't get people to produce them locally, we had the designers in Taiwan show their designs to people in China who carved them for us and then we had them shipped over. But I am an architect myself, so I didn't see it as a major effort. So there is no need to worry - nothing is going to fall apart.
When will our ideals, our goals reach completion? We really have no idea. And the way we do things is that when people donate something to us and they want used it for construction, then we use it for construction.
The next thing is that we are doing is to bring Buddhism to local African people, to give them the opportunity to learn about Buddhism. As you know, when you look at Buddhism over the last 2 500 years, in every culture that it entered, in every nation that it entered, it indigenised. When Buddhism came to China we had Chinese monks; when it entered Japan we had Japanese monks; in Thailand we had Thai monks. In Sri Lanka, in Burma, every nation has its own monks. Therefore I know that as a Chinese person I cannot teach people about Buddhism in a way that they will simply accept. Africa's Buddhism will have to be spread by Africans. So the main point of us being here is to teach African people about Buddhism and, if they so wish, to support them in becoming monastics. And that is why we have established the African Buddhist College at the monastery.
When spreading the Dharma there are three principles we must never lose. The first is that our teacher is Shakyamuni Buddha. The next thing is that the Dharma is always translated into the local languages for the local people. The third thing that never changes is that there must be local monastics who are teaching Buddhism to their own people in their own language.
In educating our novices at Nan Hua, young men who will become monastics, there are many, many difficulties with that. There are local people for whom this is a new concept, but as dif-ficult as it may be for both sides, it is something that neither side has decided to give up. And that is why I am happy that working at our side is Professor Krüger and Michel Clasquin. People who have come to us to learn to become monastics are from different ethnicities, they speak different languages, they are coming from different cultures, they are from different religions. But they are coming to us to learn, but not necessarily to accept and of course the culture idea, the ideology, the systems will clash but we are learning. A Christian, a Catholic and a Muslim, as soon as they enter, their heads are shaven they put on monastic clothing, we teach them meditation, we teach them the dharma, we teach them how to eat vegetarian food and now they are even cooking it.
We remember when we were in Tanzania. Now Buddhism entered Tanzania in 1911.The little temple they have in Dar es Salaam had been constructed in 1911. When the English discov-ered that there were gems in Tanzania they needed artisans who could cut these gems, so they imported 500 Sri Lankans to Dar es Salaam to work in the factories. So Buddhism entered Tanza-nia with 500 labourers, cheap labourers. But now, 80 years later, there is no Buddhism in Tanzania. When you talk to Tanzanians, they believe that Buddhism is a belief of Sri Lankans. They don't see any local Buddhists who teach Buddhism, all they see are Sri Lankans, the temple is for Sri Lankans, run by Sri Lankans, people who go there are Sri Lankans. It is difficult for them to break through this cultural barrier and to realise that Buddhism is for everybody.
But at the African Buddhist College about 50 of our students are from Tanzania. And I truly believe that when these young men go back that they will introduce Buddhism to their own peo-ple. They are on a short-term monastic training programme for two years. After the two-year programme is over, we will discuss with them who wants to return to Tanzania and who wants to become a monastic. If they want to become monastics, they will go to Taiwan to continue their studies.
Presently we already have four monastics from Africa which are now in their second phase of study at the monastery in Taiwan, and those four are Congolese. When we opened our Afri-can Buddhist College in April 1994, we had ten students from the Congo who came to study with us. After those ten went through their two years of training, three of them decided to become monks. Unfortunately two of them went back to discuss it with their family, their family disapproved of them becoming monastics, so only one of them became a monk. So of the ten we first educated there was one left. Now in the second class there were twenty, and of those twenty, three became monks. So therefore we have a total of four.
I was in a car accident after that and it was impossible for me to continue actively to interview people, to look for students, so we had a break for a year. Now the interesting thing is that those who decided not to become monastics, who went back to the Congo as lay people, have already started to have an influence on those around them. They are very interested in continuing their studies themselves, and try to present what they have learned to those around them. Unfortunately they didn't have enough education, so they have difficulty in teaching the dharma. Now we believe that if we continue our efforts, that this energy will continue around the world.
Now our construction site is here in South Africa, our monastery is here, But we go to Tanzania and the Congo. Originally the plan was to try to introduce Buddhism to every country in Africa, but it is such a huge continent with so many countries, that we decided to triangulate our efforts. So we are based in the South, we have chosen a location in the East and we have a loca-tion in the West, and we hope that from these three points Buddhism will slowly spread into the continent. Perhaps after a very long time it might even get to Egypt.
Being here has given us a lot of hope. Last year when we opened up again and we had advertising posted, we had 400 people sending applications to come and study at the monastery. They were from grade four all the way up to university level. It is only our fourth year. And the fact that so many people applied that it has given us faith to continue our work.
Unfortunately, because our administration, our staff, even our facilities, are limited, we couldn't take all 400 of them. It was very sad for us, unfortunate for us that we couldn't offer all these 400 people the opportunity to learn about Buddhism.
You might have heard the story that during the time of the Budda there was a person who became drunk and he said to Shakyamuni that he would like to have his head shaved, he wants to become a monk, but he was joking. So the Buddha had people shave his head and change him into a robe and had him come to the temple. And because he was so drunk that even with his head shaved and the robe that he was now wearing he fell asleep, he didn't know what happened. And when he woke up and he saw that he was now bald and wearing a robe, he was astounded and said "what happened?" And he said "I didn't come here to become a monk, I haven't even agreed to become a monk". And the Buddha said to let him go. And the disciple said to the Buddha, "it is such a serious decision to become a monk, how could you just accept someone who is drunk and speaks in drunkenness, accept him as a monk? " He said that a man who is a drunkard will never say that he wants to be a monk and never start that process, but it was when he was drunk that somehow he open up a place in his mind that there was a possibility. And by shaving his head and letting him change I have now planted a seed in his mind, a seed that will one day bring forth the process that now begins. And one day, in some life he will start the process on his own. Now he didn't continue, but he has made his first agreement, that maybe in future lives he will once again join.
And that is why I say that we feel unfortunate, that it is very sad, that we were not able to offer these 400 students, who are educated, who are willing, who are interested, the opportunity to continue with their desire. I truly believe that to indigenise Buddhism in the Southern hemisphere as it has become indigenised throughout the world you have to have the local people become monastics, I hope that we can take some time during this meeting to discuss this point, to look at other means or possibly to correct my thinking.
If no one can convince me otherwise, I will probably just continue. I have tried to make monks out of people my whole life. I believe that my life will probably last for a few more decades. I believe that during these few more decades I might be able to introduce Buddhism and teach maybe ten thousand African people. So we hope that those who graduate from the African Bud-dhist College in my lifetime will not be just a few hundred or a few thousand but over ten thousand.
Educating them, feeding them, housing them, clothing them, is very expensive, so therefore my first responsibility comes into play. I have to create some kind of financial structure or foundation to support the propagation of Buddhism. In Taiwan, because the number of Buddhist there, and because of the faith that people have, they support their religion. If there is a temple and there are monks in the temple and there are people teaching, there are also people who will support the temple to make sure that it is up and running, to keep it alive. If you look at the num-ber of Buddhists in Africa who are willing to make donations to any kind of Buddhist programme, very limited and we cannot survive on that. There are very, very few Buddhist devotees on this continent.
Our expenses, including everything for our monastery, are well over a million Rand a month. So that is why we have to continue with our international contacts and go back to Taiwan to get outside support, until we are established. So many people laugh at me and they said, "how long have you been in South Africa?", and I say "Six years" and then they remark that I still can't speak English. The reason for this is that I am only here for a week or ten days a month, and when I am here, I don't just stay at the Nan Hua monastery, I am also in Cape Town, Durban, New-castle, moving around contacting the devotees. We have seven places now, where we have set up Buddhist centres in South Africa. If I just make the rounds, that gives me one day at each place and then it is time for me to go back.
Now remember that this is only temporary, you can't always expect outside support to propagate Buddhism to local people. So you can say, that this period for Nan Hua monastery to be here, we are still being weaned. We hope that it won't be more than ten years before we are totally weaned. Then we can stand on our own two feet and will have local support. Remember that in early Buddhism all the monastics were beggars, they carried bowls. But when it went to China things changed. In China the monasteries are supported by their own farms. And then they be-gan to make money by even renting out lands. They became landlords and that is how the maintained their monasteries.
Now in 1949, as you know, during the communist revolution in China there was land reform in China and Buddhism was destroyed. It is now transformed into using a totally different way of being self sufficient. What we do now for our college, we had dharma functions that people attend, we have local donations that people offer, we also do publishing, and we have education-al programmes.
Because the economy of Taiwan skyrocketed since the Republic of China in Taiwan instituted a strategy of economic reforms Buddhism became economically self supporting. But we can't use that method, the Taiwanese style here, in this country. It is very, very difficult if we haven't got our devotees' support. So self sufficien¬cy is very important for any programme. That is why we started farming again. We hope that within the next eight to ten years we will have about 20 000 hectares under cultivation. This way we can support the college, the university, the educa-tional facilities we need, so that even without donations, we will be self suffi¬cient as far as food goes.
Then we also teach the people who are with us to start new markets and how to create their own income. This is not something that monks are doing. This is what our devotees are doing. They manage it. They are running it. But it is the devotees, the lay people, who are Buddhists that they support a Buddhist monk. We always say that for the monastics it is only through being taking in a harvest that they can understand.
It is very easy for people who are wealthy and have too many luxuries to become corrupt. A lot of people look at the Nan Hua Temple and all that they see is money. But we need to have a centre of Buddhism in the continent of Africa that people can be proud of. When train people in the monastic order, all of them will be coming to the Nan Hua Temple and the African Buddhist College, at our monastery, for their final training, before we can send them to other countries where they continue their Buddhist studies.
To have African monks, we must have African ordination. We cannot send people out of the continent to be ordained. And that is why the final stage is the ordination course. In the past, when Korean monastics wanted to learn about Buddhism, they went to China. If they wanted to take precepts and become a monastic they would do it in China, at a Chinese monastery. There was a monk in China who went to Korea and built an ordination hall in Korea for Koreans, and therefore Korean Buddhism finally become indigenised. It became something that belonged to the people of Korea. And in Japan the same process occurred.
Therefore when the Africans leave here to go to study we can bring them to the level of novice only, they will not be actual monks. Our order can give to them the novice precepts. But for our order to become indigenous we need to have ten of the highest ranking monks of the order, to ordain them. And that is why they have to go to Taiwan because that is where this will take place.
So in the future we will have one or two hundred of our monastics who said they want to become monks we are going to have to rent an aeroplane to take them all over to Taiwan to become monastics, to take the ordinations. Our hope is that 2004 will be the year that masters can come to the Nan Hua monastery and the students can take ordinations right here that we can indigenise. And never again will they have to go all the way to Taiwan to become monks. So this is my report that I wanted to give to you.
I believe that there are three very big transformations that have happened on this planet which have had the greatest impact on humanity. The first I believe was the renaissance that took place in Europe. It changed people's whole concept of reality, it ended the dark ages, it brought them to the end of feudalism, it brought them away from the concept of a city-state, it brought them into the concept of a country.
The second one, I believe, was the industrial revolution. This changed the way people lived and how we manufactured things, it transformed the material world for us.
We are now entering a new state that will have a new huge impact on humanity. This is the telecommunication revolution. This way those of you who have stock, you know you don't have to read a newspaper to find out what the New York stock exchange is, you just go into Internet, all the information is there. You want to create an atomic bomb? You just go into the Internet, get into libraries, collect information. Information is now free, open to all.
Therefore, we must look at telecommunication. For us who are propagating a religion, religious beliefs, it is true that this is a new medium, that we need to start transforming and moving with. This is the first time in the history of humanity that national boundaries have broken down, that people's race, ethnicity, beliefs are gone, there is no longer anything keeping a human being from contacting another, exchanging information from one to another, the boundaries are gone. We are spreading Buddhism in Africa, but there is no boundary now between Africa and the rest of the planet.
I seriously believe that after two to three hundred years the centre of Buddhism on this planet will be Africa. This is because if you look at the system, at what Buddhism has done over the last two thousand years, you will see that for Buddhism to spread you must have monks, you must have monastics. International Buddhism is only a few decades old now. The Fo Kuang Shan humanistic Buddhist order has only being spreading Buddhism internationally for the last thirty years.
For over a decade now we have been in Australia, for over a decade we have been in the United States, but there aren't Australian monastics, there aren't American monastics, so in the United States probably it will be a case of Chinese or Chinese culturally identified people, who will be spreading Chinese Buddhism to each other. If they really want to make Buddhism in-digenise in the United States, they need to have the local people become monks. And it is not a matter of one here and one there, it has to be thousands, and it is really very difficult. In Europe it is also very difficult, in Australia it is very difficult. Very few people there become monks.
We have been in Africa, with our African Buddhist College, for only four years and already we have 400 African applicants. And with the numbers increasing as they are, and more and more people getting involved and curious and interested in Buddhism and willing to learn and come to practise it, I believe that these numbers will grow. The day will come where the main cen-tre for the Buddhist religion on this planet will be Africa. But this will probably not be for two or three hundred years.
When I first arrived here, and I looked around, I said to myself that I must make my final oath that for the next five lifetimes that I am reincarnated I must come to this country. So I will probably be here for those three hundred years. I will have the opportunity to see that day present itself.

Discussion

Comment: I would like to thank your order for distributing thousands of copies of the writings my tradition's main teacher, the venerable Ajahn Chah.

Hui Li: It is the same at Nan Hua temple, we have people from different schools coming in to teach. We want to promote Buddhism, not just the Taiwanese concept of it. We also have many rooms available at our guest house and if you want to hold functions there you are welcome to do so.

Question: Do you think that the financial crisis in Asia at the moment will cause people to reassess their level of support? To drift away from their beliefs?

Hui Li: Buddhism is very well planted in Asia. Materialism hasn't really changed how people perceive Buddhism, it's just changed how they respect it. I'm not sure about the other countries in Asia, but that is my impression from what I see happening in Taiwan. In the past, Christianity, Catholicism, became very popular during a certain period in the history of Taiwan, but it seems that in the more recent past, Buddhism has become much more popular. That is why I think the study of Buddhism will in future come to the fore on the whole planet. There is a story about two investors who came to Africa, who wanted to invest in shoe factories. One of them said "The Africans aren't wearing any shoes, so there's no money to be made in this business here". The other one said "Oh, look, most Africans aren't wearing shoes, here's an opportunity". And it's not because they don't wear shoes, it's because they have no shoes to wear. We believe in the second approach. It's not that most Africans aren't Buddhists. Most of them don't even know that Buddhism exists. It's not that they are not willing to know, but that they simply don't know about it. That is why in only three years we have gone from zero to many stu-dents and a couple of monks.

 
 
  The Kagyu Line-age Tree its branches in South-ern Af-rica (a per-sonal view). Hugh Laue
, Kagyu Afrika


 
One question already put forward for this afternoon's business meeting is whether this kind of contact between the Buddhist community and academia is useful, or indeed skilful? It's the sort of question that I asked myself when agreeing to participate in this conference. The fact that I am here does not mean I have answered that question to my own satisfaction.
What might we deem as "useful"? Tai Situpa, a high Lama in the Kagyu order, says in his book Way to go - "We have to give up the thought, 'I want to work for Buddhism' because what we should be working for is people, through the teachings of Buddhism, and we should keep this commitment and understanding in mind. ... we are working for beings, not Buddhism". So perhaps the extent to which this sort of conference helps beings defines its usefulness. Insofar as skilfulness is concerned the real skilfulness is that expressed by those who have realised enlightened mind, which I haven't.
So I have deliberately qualified this presentation as being "a personal view" to remind myself, and you, that it is from a very limited perspective, and highly tainted by ego attachment. There are many others born on this continent and in this lifetime - see how we have to qualify "born" - who would be much better qualified to speak on this subject if the "personal view" qualification wasn't there. So here I am, like a mountaineer still standing in the foothills after taking a few faltering steps, surveying the mighty peak not yet experienced, and trying to tell you something about it. In order to do that I have drawn liberally from a few books, in particular The History of the Sixteen Karmapas of Tibet by Karma Thinley, Rimpoche.
The Kagyu order of Tibetan Buddhism is the lineage through which transmission of certain meditative teachings is accomplished, most particularly those of Mahamu¬dra. These teachings were first developed through the spontaneous insight of the Indian mahasiddha Tilopa (AD 988 -1069). The teachings of Buddha have been preserved for over 2500 years in a multiplicity of lineages. Lord Buddha himself gave many varied and sometimes contrasting instructions to his students, who subsequently specialised in particular cycles of precepts. Out of these early group-ings of dharma followers emerged the 18 Hinayana sects. Later the Mahayana traditions of the Madhyamika and Yogacara flourished as a result of the inspiration of Nagarjuna and Asanga. Subsequently, from the fifth century AD onwards, the various lines of the Vajrayana or "secret mantra" emerged. Therefore, when the Buddhadharma was transmitted to Tibet, the Tibetan line-ages developed to a large extent on the basis of this pre-existing pattern.
A "lineage" or "tradition of dharma" possesses certain recognisable characteristics, including a central spiritual theme or "viewpoint" such as the Kagyu Mahamudra. This view is itself asso-ciated with specific practices and symbolic deities. Moreover, the particular teachings are preserved by, and passed on through, a line of accomplished spiritual masters, who themselves embody the actual qualities of the teaching. In the 1000 years history of Buddhadharma in Tibet 4 major traditions, Nyingma, Sakya, Gelug and Kagyu have developed. Numerous small lines and sub-sects have also arisen, most of which have since disappeared as independent schools.
Tilopa received his root teaching from Dharmakaya Buddha Vajradhara, the primordial Buddha. Tilopa's foremost disciple was Naropa. Naropa was a famous Professor at Nalanda Univer-sity. He left academia to seek Tilopa when he recognised that, although he had a deep and comprehensive scholarly understanding of Buddha's teaching, he did not have the direct realisation. It took Naropa 12 years of ardent devotion and indefatigable service to his Guru Tilopa to attain his goal. Naropa marks the beginning of a new and rich era of Buddhist thought in Tibet, while at the same time he is the culmination of a long tradition in India where none of his contemporaries or successors can compare with him in depth of experience.
Naropa's teachings were transmitted to Tibet by Marpa who made three arduous and dangerous journeys from Tibet to receive the teachings. Marpa is renowned for both his literal and fig-urative translation of Buddha's teachings to Tibet. Marpa's foremost disciple was the famous Tibetan yogi Milarepa. Milarepa's main disciple was Gampopa (1079- 1153).
Gampopa, a skilled physician, was at first a Kadampa bhikshu who studied the "graded path" teachings of Atisa. Later he received teaching in Mahamudra and the "six yogas of Naropa" from Milarepa. After that he was called "two streams become one". He organised these lineages into an organic whole, giving his name, Dakpo Lharje "the Doctor from Dakpo" to the school he formed, which thus became known as the Dakpo Kagyu. The term Kagyu derives from a longer phrase meaning "lineages of the four commissioned ones" but is often translated simply as "oral transmission". Because of its emphasis on practice it is known as "the practising lineage".
Tradition has it that Gampopa is an incarnation of Kumara, a physician follower of the historical Buddha, who was told by the Buddha that in the future he would again be a physician in a northern country. Gampopa composed The Jewel Ornament of Liberation, a text which guides the student from the elementary tenets of Buddhism to the profoundest realisation of Bud-dhahood. According to its translator, Dr Herbert Guenther, "In the whole of Buddhist literature there is hardly any other work which in simple and concise form deals with the whole of Bud-dhism as a living experience and as a human task."
The first Karmapa, Dusem Khyenpa, was the earliest and foremost disciple of Gampopa. Gampopa recognised Dusem Khyenpa as the first Karmapa, whose manifestation and successive incarnations had been foretold by the Buddha himself in the Samadhirajasutra. Considered an embodiment of Avalokitesvara, the bodhisattva of compassion, the first Karmapa had many powerful disciples and created the special emphasis within the Kagyu order which identified it as "the practising lineage". In brief, this emphasis is that the doctrinal teachings are of very little worth unless living realisation of them through meditation practice is attained.
The second Karmapa, Karma Pakshi, was the first Tibetan Tulku ever to be recognised, the subject of the first acknowledgement of spiritual succession through reincarnation. Tulkus, or "incarnate teachers" are spiritually advanced practitioners who, having transcended the network of ego, nevertheless return in successive lives to carry out their vow to work for sentient beings. Although incarnate teachers had been recognised in India, the existence in Tibet of developed traditions with great cultural and social significance enabled Tulkus to be recognised and trained in such a way which had not been possible in India. Within the Tibetan lineages the incarnate teachers have been regarded as the jewels of the tradition and have generally been the senior teachers, yogins and scholars.
The successive incarnations of the Karmapas have continued up to the 17th Karmapa who is now 12 years old and still living in Tibet. The 16th Karmapa died in Chicago in 1981. Although he escaped from Tibet in 1956 it was not until 1974 that he first visited the west, including the USA.
The Karmapas are unique in that they are the only Tulkus to write letters before they die, predicting their future place of birth and the names of the parents.
Besides the Karmapas there are many other supporting Tulkus in the Kagyu tradition, such as the Situpas of which the present incarnation is the 12th and from whose book I quoted earlier. The Karma Kagyu tradition cannot be considered in isolation from the other traditions of Buddhism in Tibet upon which it exerted considerable influence and from which, in turn, it received many teachings.
Karma Thinley's book on the Karmapas has a wonderful review of the teachings of the Kagyu tradition from which I have selected parts and quote almost verbatim.
"The essential theme of the Kagyu teaching is Mahamudra (great seal), the realisation of the true nature of mind and its radiation in wisdom and compassion. It is the foundation, path and goal of spirituality. The Mahamudra yogin realises that as "Buddha-nature" is the underlying reality of all phenomena, whatever arises is "sealed" with "co-emergent" perfection.
The actual instructions and methods of the Kagyu spiritual path derive from Gampopa's unification of the Kadam "graded path" dharma and the Tantric precepts of the mahasiddhas. Its chief philosophical base is the Uttaratantra of Maitreya and its commentary by Asanga. The Mahamudra theme embraces all the apparent multiplicity of these precepts and practices.
The transforming path has three main stages of development: Hinayana, Mahayana and Vajrayana. Mahamudra is itself the crown or climax of the path.
The Hinayana is the starting point of the spiritual path and it focuses on the frustration that permeates all existence. By applying the simple precision and dignity of the Hinayana in medita-tion and everyday life the practitioner develops an understanding that conditioned reality is impermanent, sorrowful and egoless. From this comes a natural, unfeigned renunciation. Within the Kagyu tradition a series of precepts known as "the four thoughts that turn the mind (to dharma)" are utilised as particularly effective means of realising the "four truths". The four thoughts are; 1) precious human life (2) death and impermanence (3) action and result (4) defects of samsara.
As the practice of Hinayana brings about a detachment from the fixation on ego, a natural spaciousness and openness develops. This is the dawn of the Mahayana path. Its key concept is bodhicitta, the union of prajna and compassion which arises out of the all encompassing "Buddha-nature". Its prajna consists in its direct penetration of the "emptiness' of ego and phenomena. Its compassion consists in its responsiveness to the needs of others. Within our tradition many precepts exist for both relative and ultimate bodhicitta. In particular we have inherited precepts of relative bodhicitta from the Kadam school through which one develops the fearlessness of bodhicitta in exchanging oneself for another.
Ultimate bodhicitta is meditation on "emptiness," in which the practitioner sees the space-like "emptiness" of reality, free from extremes of existence and non-existence.
The all-powerful inspiration of bodhicitta extends outward into all aspects of life as the activity of the six "perfections" (paramita): giving, morality, patience, energy, meditation and prajna.
The Vajrayana or Tantrayana is the highest level of Buddha's way. In the lower yanas the practitioner follows a path which will lead to enlightenment in the future. However, in the Vajra-yana the practitioner adopts the goal itself as the path. The spaciousness of Mahayana gives birth to the Vajrayana perception of the universe as the play of interwoven Buddha-energies, so at the level of Tantra, body, speech and mind are transformed into the body, speech and mind of Buddha. The key concept of Vajrayana is samaya, which is the yogin's commitment to the perfect purity of the Vajrayana vision.
In Vajrayana, Buddhahood is directly manifested in the three roots of guru, devata, and dakini and dharmapala, which are, in effect, the tantric aspects of the three jewels.
The guru is the root of "inspiration" as he is the one who reveals the presence of the Buddha within our mind. The devata ("deity") is the root of "attainment", as Buddhahood manifests in a multiplicity of forms to benefit different aptitudes and dispositions. So the yogin performs the spiritual practice of the deity or deities which embody the awakened transformation of his own particular disposition.
The dakinis ("sky-goers") and dharmapalas ("dharma-protectors") together comprise the root of "activity" (karma). The dakinis embody the feminine energy of enlightenment as it appears in situations to guide and restore the yogin to a sense of balance. The dharmapalas, both male and female aspects, function in an analogous manner to guard the yogin's spiritual development and accumulated blessings of the various lineages of Buddhadharma.
As the practice of Tantra revolves around the transformation of body, speech and mind into the three kayas of Buddhahood, dharmakaya, samboghakaya and nirmanakaya, the Tantras include practices relating to each of these three aspects.
Bodily practices include prostrations, offering, walking meditations and yogic postures.
Speech practice revolves around mantra and liturgy.
Mind practice involves visualisation in which the dualistic perception of subject and object is purified by the creation of the devata ("deity") and his environment. Its other aspect is formless meditation, which is Mahamudra meditation. The highest order of Tantra is the Anuttarayoga, which is radically different from the three lower orders (which I haven't mentioned) in its emphasis on the unsurpassable, all-pervading nature of Buddha-energy.
Mahamudra is simultaneously the climax of Vajrayana and the thread running through the entire Kagyu spiritual path . Although essentially it eludes formulation, one may consider that it possesses three aspects: view, meditation and action.
View: The true nature of mind is the primordial union of "luminosity" and "emptiness". As such it is unborn and undying. As Tilopa declares, "mahamudra mind dwells nowhere". All phe-nomena arise and fade in the space of mind which is naturally empty.
Meditation: The heart of Mahamudra is the effortless, uncontrived experience of mind. When the cloud-like obscurations are dispersed, the unborn and undying Dharmakaya is revealed.
As with all cycles of teaching, to begin Mahamudra practice the yogin must receive the appropriate empowerments, textual transmissions and instructions from the guru.
Action: The characteristic feature of Mahamudra action is effortlessness. As it results from the complete emptiness and compassion of the view and meditation, it goes beyond the notion of imposed discipline. Hence the Mahamudra yogin may sometimes behave in a way which is apparently shocking.
So how did this 1000 year old spiritual "lineage tree" find its way here and how is it spreading its branches? As a direct result of the Chinese invasion of Tibet many of the lineage holders, the highly realised lamas, fled to India and some of them eventually found their way to the west. Barely 20 years old, Chogyam Trungpa Rimpoche and Akong Rimpoche, Tulkus in the Kagyu tradition, managed to escape from Tibet in 1959. After a few years, having learnt some basic English, they were helped with a passage to England by Mrs Bedi, an English woman helping with the refugees. In England the senior of the two Tulkus, Trungpa Rimpoche, attended Oxford University while Akong Rimpoche earned money as a hospital orderly. For Akong Rimpoche, who was a Tibetan doctor and had been Abbot of his own monastery in Tibet, this humiliating experience was worse than the physical hardships suffered during the 6 months it took to escape from Tibet.
Eventually, in 1967, there was sufficient interest and support for them to take over the Johnston House Contemplative Community near Dumphries in Scotland, and Samye Ling Tibetan Centre was founded. In 1972 Trungpa Rimpoche went to America where he founded many centres while Akong Rimpoche carried on to build Samye Ling into one of the largest Tibetan Buddhist centres in the west.
Mrs Bedi meanwhile became a nun in the Kagyu order and a devoted disciple of the 16th Karmapa. She was given the name Sister Palmo and visited Cape Town and Port Elizabeth in 1972. This visit was the culmination of an encounter in India ten years before with the late Rosemary Vosse of Cape Town who had established a " Tibetan Friendship Group" dedicated to helping Tibetan refugees. A beautiful account of the life of Sister Palmo was written by Sheila Fugard in 1977, shortly after Sister Palmo's death.
As a result of this visit in 1972, Karma Rigdol was founded in South Africa by Sister Palmo under the direction of His Holiness the Sixteenth Gyalwa Karmapa. These can be considered the first formal roots of the Kagyu lineage in South Africa and probably in Africa. By 1977 Karma Rigdol had developed into small groups in Cape Town, Johannesburg, Durban and Port Eliz-abeth practising and studying the teachings of the Kagyu lineage. These groups were then represented by Karma Samten (CT), Geoff Hardacre (JHB), Jimmy Souter (DBN) and Sheila Fugard (PE).
At the end of 1977, or the beginning of 1978, Geoffrey Hardacre and a group of four, including his wife Norma, travelled to France to meet the Karmapa. The group was warmly welcomed and received unusual attention from the Karmapa, with whom Geoffrey established a very deep connection. Politically it was difficult for Lamas to visit South Africa at that time and Geoffrey was given permission by the Karmapa to give refuge to South Africans on his behalf. This was probably the first and only time that such permission has been given to a lay Buddhist. On their return, a number of us in the Johannesburg Group took refuge through Geoffrey and formally became Kagyu Buddhists. At the beginning of 1982 Akong Rimpoche made his first visit to South Africa, having been explicitly instructed by the Karmapa to do so. Akong Rimpoche told us that the Karmapa selected him because "you look like one of them". It was after this that the Karma Kagyu Trust was formed and all the Karma Rigdol centres now came under the spiritual direction of Akong Rimpoche as they have been since.
The first teachings by Akong Rimpoche that I can find notes of were given at Nieu Bethesda in January and February 1982. A retreat centre had been established there by Rob Nairn, who is presently Akong Rimpoche's representative in Southern Africa. Rob had been a practising Theravadin Buddhist for a number of years before connecting with Tibetan Buddhism when he met the Karmapa in America during the Karmapa's second visit there in 1976. Rob has completed a traditional four year retreat at Samye Ling, Akong Rimpoche's centre in Scotland, along with 3 other South Africans. He has written a book on meditation practice which has recently been translated into Afrikaans. Rob is one of the most dedicated and accomplished Kagyu Buddhists from Southern Africa.
These first teachings given by Rimpoche covered the essentials of the traditional practices of the Kagyu tradition but there was also a course titled Meditations Dealing with Everyday Life. The instructions on the 20 or so relaxation and meditation exercises given then were recorded by Rob and published in a limited photocopied edition. This was the first time Rimpoche had given the teachings in this form which were free of the usual Tibetan Buddhist iconography. Rimpoche has said that the western mind is very "brittle" and needs gentle treatment. Our schooling has emphasised the conceptual and thus, for most westerners going directly into a meditation practice that involves letting go of concepts is very difficult. Also, most westerners have difficulty re-lating to the Tibetan Buddhist iconography and ritual (particularly, it seems, those who could not relate to the ritual of the Catholic Church). It was as a result of his experiences with westerners that Rimpoche developed these exercises which are based on traditional Kagyu practices. According to Rimpoche most westerners are too neurotic to meditate and these exercises are to help heal those neuroses. Thus they are a form of therapy to prepare one for "real" meditation practice. Insofar as they work in the realm of direct experience and transformation I think they can be considered to be Tantric practices. The exercises are easier for westerners to relate to than the traditional ones because (a) the visualisations are free of "religious" or "cultural" connotations and (b) they involve an active "doing" which seems to be easier than "letting go" for most westerners. That these "new" teachings were given first in the small Karoo village of Nieu Bethesda just up the road from the famous "owl house" with all its concrete and glass sculptures facing East somehow seems very significant. The exercises that Rimpoche taught then, and has taught elsewhere since, have been published in book form titled Taming the Tiger, where the "tiger" is the wild mind. Through these exercises one learns the power of visualisation, one learns the nature of im-permanence, one learns that nothing is solid, one learns how we project our habitual thoughts and behaviour patterns onto others and one learns how to transform negativity into compassion. I'm sure if I had assiduously practised those teachings since 1982 I would be well on my way to enlightenment by now. As it is, it is only in the last couple of years that I have come to appreciate the power and depth of these practices through facilitating the course at the Kensington Centre.
The Kagyu Centres in Johannesburg, Cape Town and Harare are owned by the Rokpa Trust which is Akong Rimpoche's charitable organisation. Rimpoche's wishes are that each centre focuses on three areas - Dharma, Therapy and Charity work. The motivation behind all of these is "try to help relieve sentient beings from suffering".
Samye Dzong Johannesburg evolved from a group that used to meet for meditation practice at Geoffrey Hardacre's house in Blairgowrie. From there it moved to Houghton where a friend and I bought a large house which we thought could serve both the interests of family life and a Dharma centre. This was not possible and after three years that house had to be sold and the cen-tre found a home renting the upper floor of the Theosophical Society. During the time at Houghton teachers such as Godwin Samararatna and Stephen Batchelor gave teachings there. Another teacher was Steven Allen and the result of his visit was that a number of the group decided that they were after all Zen Buddhists and left to form a Zen centre - which I believe itself split later into two different Zen groups. Another spawning occurred when Geshe Damchen, a Gelugpa Lama, visited the Centre at the Theosophical society and others of the group left to help form the Lam Rim centre under his guidance.
It seems to be the nature of the dharma establishing itself in the West, not just Africa, that many seekers come and go and only a few really connect and stay with a particular practice. Rob estimates that about 500 people have taken refuge with Akong Rimpoche but less than half that number are still on the mailing list and less still partake in the centres activities on any sort of regular basis. Rimpoche has often told us that we should examine the teachings and teacher of whatever tradition and then make some sort of a commitment to practice those teachings in some depth. This is of course especially true regarding Buddhism where realisation through direct experience is the foundation. Choose your mountain and then climb it - and recognise that you can only climb one mountain at a time. Rimpoche's second admonition is to have respect for all other spiritual traditions and religions. However, he has seen that trying to mix traditions and practic-es at one centre does not work but only confuses - especially beginners. So only teachers approved by Rimpoche can teach at our centres - and the rest of us who present courses at the centres, including Rob Nairn, are only facilitators, not teachers.
If Rob was giving this presentation he would be able to talk about the connection the Kagyu tradition is making with black Africans in Zimbabwe and Zaire. During Rimpoche's last visit to Harare 40 black Zimbabweans took refuge. I surmise you would like to hear more about that, and not the connection it is making with Eurocentric middle-class whites. I'm afraid I am going to disappoint you there. Rimpoche himself has tried to make some connections in other ways - he met Credo Mutwa twice. There is a particular interest in Africa from the Lamas in that tradi-tion has it that Guru Rimpoche (Padmasambava), the Indian Mahasiddha who first took Buddhism to Tibet and tamed the shamanistic Bon Po, never died but still resides somewhere in Africa on a copper mountain. It seems from discussions between Akong Rimpoche and Credo Mutwa that there are some remarkable correspondences between Tibetan Buddhist legend and a story of an African tribe living somewhere in the copper belt. This tribe apparently hunt in animal clothes and Guru Rimpoche is said to be living on a mountain inhabited by man-beasts. Furthermore this tribe has a sacred mountain in which lives a spirit known as "om guru". But further explorations along this line will have to wait for another time, another place and probably other people.
Being part of the practice lineage I would like to end this presentation with the first visualisation practice from Akong Rimpoche's "Taming the Tiger".

Close your eyes, relax and become aware of your thoughts and feelings, positive and negative.

Now visualise or imagine in front of you a beautiful golden gate.

Focus on your outbreath and as you breath out imagine all your thoughts and feelings, good or bad, flowing out through this gate where they are immediately transformed into offerings which benefit beings. These offerings can be things that people need or desire or you can simply imagine a healing golden light of compassionate energy streaming out into the universe benefiting all sentient beings..

References:

Gampopa 1970 (transl H V Guenther). The Jewel Ornament of Liberation. London: Rider and Company

Karma Thinley 1980. The History of the Sixteen Karmapas of Tibet. Boulder: Prajna press

Khentin Tai Situpa [sa]. Way to go. Lamgholm: Kagyu Samye-Ling Tibetan Centre
 
 
 
  The Role of Buddhist Groups in South Africa Alison Smith, Rosebank Buddhist Group


Introduction: Past and Present

 
Small groups in SA operate both independently and within main stream traditions, have done so since the early 80's, and continue to do so. My Pretoria and Cape Town groups were prod-ucts of the times early 80's and 90's before the entrenchment of the main stream. They were developmental and non aligned. Historically these Buddhist groups on the Reef varied: some were very eclectic, some very small, some quite large.
At the outset it is important to note that not all group members were interested in Dhamma/Buddhism, or in the religious experience; many joined simply to learn to meditate. The same is true today, but perhaps to a lesser degree.
The element of scale. Original Dhamma teaching was personal wandering bhikkhus working in small communities. Modern cities preclude this approach therefore the group is a useful substitute.
During the early years of the Dhamma in South Africa there was a succession of visiting teachers who moved on quite rapidly (by contrast, in 1998 we now have the most resident teachers and centres ever in the country) so the groups were contact points and carried out the logistics of teachers' visits beyond the borders of Ixopo. On the teacher's departure, the groups provided an infrastructure to continue the work that the visiting teacher started.
Particularly in our Pretoria group in the early to mid 80's we hosted teachers right across the spectrum, both Asian and Western. In our current Cape Town group, the Rosebank Buddhist group, there has latterly been more emphasis on Theravada teachers.
The structure and function of a group

Structure

Size. Small can be effective; large is not necessarily better; there is the problem of critical mass when a group becomes too large for its own good, and should organically develop into a number of smaller more workable units.

Stages in group life:

founding = investigation phase
consolidating = missionary zeal
maintaining = requires long term commitment to the Dhamma as a whole PLUS input of professional teaching at a deeper level; the maintenance level can be the period where the group is most likely to fall or fail

Groups on the whole tend to be evanescent rather than long term. However, use of the phrases "long/short" term are highly relative to local conditions. For example, in the USA there are groups of 20 years standing which is genuinely long term, whereas 7 10 years could be considered long term in the South African context.

Function

We can define the group's function as being to provide the means whereby Dhamma can be taught and meditation practised and visiting teachers hosted.
Aims and objectives it helps to have these clearly defined; for example, the current aims of the Rosebank Buddhist group are:

 
We aim to learn about, understand and put into practice the teachings of Gotama, the Buddha. To this end we
 provide regular weekly group meditation sittings
 provide a forum for discuss on Buddhism as applied to daily life
 provide access to a wide range of Buddhist books
 network with other Buddhist groups nationwide on visits and retreats by overseas teachers
 subscribe to overseas Buddhist magazines and newspapers
Last but by no means least, membership of our group brings the support of friends in the Sangha
However, I believe it is best for a group to determine its own objectives tailored to its own needs. For example one group may chose to focus on meditation practice only; another may chose to focus on studying texts and sutras; another may decide to support and broadcast the message of a particular teacher or tradition; another group may decide on a dynamic fundraising campaign in order to build or acquire its own premises or centre. Note that this shopping list is not mutually exclusive a group may choose to embrace all of these options under one umbrella.
The success of any group depends on understanding and working with (assimilating) the Four C's: Core, Conduit, Communication and Community.

 CORE each group will have a core; can be small; might only be 3 members; these are the constant, regular attenders.

 CONDUIT it is essential to regard a Buddhist group as a conduit through which people can pass, gaining something of Dhamma no master how small en route. It is essential to under-stand and come to terms with the fact that newcomers may only be shopping around; that they may change over to a more traditional group, or even change traditions; that lifestyle demands and circumstances of laypeople cannot be ignored. This is where the principle of Anicca/Impermanence comes in ....

 COMMUNICATION not only to communicate teaching, but also broadcast current events, future events, and also to build the community.

 COMMUNITY group membership allows the newcomer to associate with "real live Buddhists" on many levels formal, religious, social; only by encouraging people to have this sense of community can a group (a) continue and (b) hopefully succeed. The Buddha said that "Friendship is the whole of the holy life" and while we are laypeople and he was addressing monks, I believe it is one of the most important benefits of belonging to a group the opportunity to associate with Sangha, both lay and monastic.

I think it is useful to distinguish between independent groups and mainstream tradition groups. Both have inherent strengths and weaknesses.
Mainstream groups have an built in support system; an automatic "how to do what and when" scheme; a structure to follow; regular visits from their own supervising teachers. This helps group leaders who then don't have to make too many choices as to what to do, how to operate; provides them with ready made resources such as literature and taped talks.
The downside of this is "having to do what Head Office says we must do". Having to obey the imperative of a Head Office that may not be appropriate under local circumstances or may be even downright impractical. Having to stick to traditional methods of practice and having to follow a pre set programme that may not necessarily be where local people "are at" at any given moment. People might not being permitted to associate freely with, or explore the ideas, traditions and practices of, other types of Buddhism.
Additionally there is the classic dilemma of "our money" going "somewhere else" when there may be pressing local needs that are subsumed to greater national or international needs.
Independent groups operate on a flexible, group driven plan (assuming of course that there is a plan!)
The upside is that there is complete autonomy, with the ability to adapt to changing circumstances and group needs at different times in the life of the group. There is no obligation to follow a "Head Office agenda" either with regard to programme or fundraising. There is in fact, no need to raise funds at all this is very significant think of the actual time of the Buddha: he taught on a "no charge" basis, albeit that the listeners did pay, in a way, by means of donations of robes, food, medicine, and groves or parks.
Money and financial matters can be the source of great contention in whatever context, personal, public or religious. Freed of the need to fund raise this enables the bulk of the group's en-ergy to go into actual practice as opposed to going into the supporting structure.
Independent groups can operate as formally or informally as they like; with or without the structure of committees and office bearers.
The minimum requirement would seem to be a number of people with a common purpose; in some instances it just needs one person who has been inspired, takes the ball and runs with it. Another basic requirement is a venue, preferably a free one or at very minimum cost. This pared down operating system works very well. Anything else, group magazines, newsletters, bank accounts, committees are purely ornamental and tend to clutter things up, and can create divisions like the Us and Them syndrome.
Again recalling the Buddha and his "open hand" style of teaching, and not having an elite or inner circle, a committee less environment is good. People can be encouraged to see service towards the group as an aspect of Dana. The easier it is to come to a group meeting, ie the less likely it is that the group member will be lumbered with a task, the more likely it is that group members will continue to attend.
Independent groups tend to be small and therefore there can be a strong sense of Sangha, or group identity. Large organisations tend to turn people into numbers very rapidly, and that sense of personal contribution to and ownership of the group is lost. But in a small pool of people, who know each other by name, and may even socialise outside of the group context, the group identity takes root. This strong sense of Sangha definitely extends beyond group borders and into the larger Buddhist community as a whole.
If a group maintains nonaligned status, it can give room to everybody/anybody whether sitters or teachers. The downside of this is that beginners can get confused if they are exposed to a rapid sequence of visiting teachers from different traditions.
An independent group may contain members who officially belong to a mainstream tradition, but chose additionally to belong to another group as well. For instance our Rosebank Buddhist Group has a couple of members who regularly sit with other mainstream groups and these people welcome the opportunity to have an additional venue for practice.
It is interesting to note that some group members' depth and commitment to the teaching may well be over and above what might be encountered in ethnic lay communities. It may be in the West that we have within these groups the emergence of a half way station between the official division of lay and monastic.
The down side of independent groups is that personal ambition, or particular interests of a leader or clique, may prevail and ultimately lead to the demise of the group, due to lack of support for particular hobby horses. Also there can be a huge ego trap for independent group leaders who may succumb to delusions of grandeur, or simply lose focus through lack of connection with an outside source or teacher, who could give direction and focus and restore the balance of a group.
It seems probable that the independent groups (having a wider and freer range) will focus predominantly on the issues of Dharma and ordinary life while the groups allied directly to the mainstream traditions will no doubt concentrate on maintaining and passing on their particular tradition. There is inherently a difference in perspective.

The future

Without the existence of Buddhist groups, whether mainstream or independent, whether large or small, the Dhamma will struggle to continue mainly because it lacks a generational familial base as in its countries of origin. The group is the next best substitute to carry the teaching forward. Additionally, groups can assist the pooling of what may be scant resources: books, tapes, videos, teachers.
The impetus created by visiting teachers can be sustained into a meaningful momentum by means of group activity, particularly by way of discussion. Groups provide very necessary fora in which to discuss and explore teaching. This exploration via discussion is essential as it reinforces and clarifies the teaching.
Groups also provide a useful training ground for potential home grown Dhamma teachers. Due to sparse local facilities, potential South African Dhamma teachers have had to travel over-seas in order to study, attend retreats and obtain teaching perhaps another route for potential teachers would be from the bottom up, ie group members who over the years give Dhamma talks to a group, and eventually reach, if not "teacher" status, then maybe "facilitator" or "guide" status. I can report that some of the talks given within our group have been of high standard, both intel-lectually and spiritually.
Spiritual training: Working within a group gives wonderful opportunities to practice the Eightfold Path, particularly Right Speech and other qualities like patience, compassion and metta. Having access to fellow Buddhists is an enriching experience we all have so much to learn from each other, and in the process may gain a little wisdom. Leading a group is a challenge in itself, particularly to keep the group heading "along the Middle Way". And that is what the teaching of the Buddha is all about: THE MIDDLE WAY.
Perhaps the time has come to focus more on developing local people within the existing local framework as opposed to the previous model in which potential Dhamma teachers either trav-elled to Asia in order to qualify (as it were) or became monastics in both Asia and the West; or else relying on ethnic Asian Buddhist teachers, some of whom are not always well attuned to the needs of Westerners.
Speaking of future developments, an important factor is the size of South Africa it's a big country and access to centres/teachers is limited to a few cities, whereas small groups can exist anywhere in the country, in the smallest town or even dorpie, where there are like minded people. The current (and foreseeable future) teacher/stu¬dent ratio means we will have to become more self sufficient and encourage the formation of new groups in the smaller centres.
I would be interested to hear from other participants their estimate of private practitioners ie those who do not join groups due to either geographical factors or personal inclinations. I sus-pect the non groupers may outnumber or equal those who do attend groups. The point being that the overall Sangha is probably a great deal larger than we realise, albeit that maybe at least 50% of it is not registered, so to speak.
We cannot expect to have an unending source of private benefactors such as the Van Loons and the Downeys, or public benefactors like the Fo Kuang Shan monastery from Taiwan. I be-lieve it is unrealistic to expect more formal institutions to be established we will have to become a lot more self supporting and "do our own thing" the group is an excellent way to do this.

Discussion


Comment: I would like to add a little postscript to what Alison said. When she moved to Cape Town after having run the Pretoria group for seven years, I took it over and ran it for an-other seven. Fourteen years is very long-lived according to your analysis. By the end, however, it came toa point where the group had run its course. There was no energy left in it. If I took time of to go somewhere, no-one was prepared to sit in front and ring the bell at the end of meditation. So in the end I had to close it down. But the dharma is compassionate —within three months, a new group had come into being.

Question: Joining a group can be intimidating for a new Buddhist. What is being done about that?

Smith: It is a deficiency of the group that you can't go back to chapter one every time a newcomer shows up, for you will bore the socks off the existing members. It is a very deli-cate balancing act. This is a problem peculiar to an old, ongoing Buddhist group. Last year we tried to address this by holding a one-day workshop on "Buddhism for begin-ners". People came, everybody said they had learned a lot, but it was noticeable that none of the new people actually joined the group.

Comment: We too had a workshop—two days in our case. About forty-five people attended and I reckon about two of those are now regular members. One of those two has just do-nated a property to the Dharma Centre. You were talking about smaller groups, but it is not actually about the numbers, but rather the quality of the membership that comes in. Our formal evenings in Cape Town didn't seem to appeal to newcomers - too much of the ritualistic aspect - so we eventually created an evening where they can meditate for two hours without the chanting, without the bowing. We have also created something similar in Robertson - a sitting every morning at eleven o'clock to which anybody can come. They don't have to become Buddhists, they don't have to bow, they can just come and meditate for half an hour. And that has been a great success: even some very conservative people have come and sat with us

Comment: I agree with Alison that you don't want to bore the old hands. But perhaps it is good for the old hands occasionally to have their noses rubbed in the basics again.

Smith: It happens!

 
 
  Afri-can reli-gion and the Afri-cani-sa-tion of Reli-gions a pan-el discus-sion Georgi-na Ham-ilton, Univer-sity of Natal & Danile Busakwe, Uni-versity of South Africa



 
Hamilton: I must start by thanking you for inviting me to talk but also by telling you that actually, I have to admit that I can't. When I first talked to Michel I told him that I was very inter-ested in coming to this conference because I happened to be interested in African religion and perhaps he made more of that than he really ought to have done. I don't pose as any kind of expert on African religion. I studied it at university probably twenty years ago and I would imagine that I have followed the debate, but anyway I have been persuaded despite this that it would be worthwhile, at least to try and facilitate a discussion on the subject. I think there are many of you that are far more expert than I am in issues about re-ligion, in particular, what will happen to them, but I don't think that we will reach that level of detail. However, please let's make it a discussion rather than a formal delivery.
Coming to the issues that I am looking at, I have tried to pick out a couple of themes and ideas that I think may be of some relevance to Buddhism here or Buddhists ideas and I don't even say "the transmission of", because I think there is an assumption in that phrase that this implies a concerted campaign, and I don't really know where that came from. I think it is very true for some groups and that it probably been caught up by others but I think the discussion has to include, on the one hand, looking at what you would do if you were proselytising, and on the other there are issues that would be useful to Buddhist without that perspective, as a presence in Africa.
But more than that, I was thinking perhaps about looking at ways in which Buddhist ideas may be made more sympathetic to African communities. That the people who are practising Buddhism in Africa have to find a place, which is somehow more at ease with these communities. And I think that there is specifically a wish to look at what we called African Religion, but I think we must be careful not to just talk about, or not just to think about African Religion as some primary, original, indigenous religion. African Religion has became many, many things. Even if you look at the religions of the white middle classes in South Africa there are already adaptations of Islam and Christianity that have in some stage adapted to in being in Africa.
So, if you keep this background in mind, I would like to start with a little anecdote that illustrates one of the first generalities we find in African religion. In 1994, just before the election, I think it was about six weeks before the election in this country, a couple of monks from the Nipponzan Myohoji order arrived. They wanted to go around the world building peace temples and they had also done long marches, and they said they would like to have a peace march through Kwa Zulu/Na¬tal, which was very violent at the time. I was quite nervous about it, and tried to discourage them, because a lot of election workers were actually killed. I think six of them were killed the day before the monks arrived. Anyway, the march started, I think it was about 15 monks in all, with some attendants, walking through the most stricken areas of Kwa Zulu Natal up to Pretoria, either Pretoria or Johannesburg, where they would be at the time of the actual election. Now, walking through those parts of Africa, you can't just do that. It was a very strange thing to do, but an-yway they set out. It was a tremendous act of faith when they walked through those villages.
They walked for about two weeks. I didn't join them, but I heard afterwards they never had a problem getting food because everywhere they found villagers, even Christian missionaries, on standby, waiting for them. Everything about them was very strange, especially the strangeness of the whole ritual that they are engaged in when they arrived with each supper each night. So I can't speak from direct experience, but I have a sense from hearing about it, that there is quite an extraordinary quality among Africans when it works which has to do with the fact of being a part of a whole. It has to do with ubuntu, a description of how people should see themselves, a person is a person because of other peo-ple, people's sense of self is entirely related to a sense of dependency, of being part of a whole. When somebody is hungry, what will you do? You don't discuss it, you feed them, give them water and this was clearly spontaneous throughout this march I mean it was obvious when people walk through your village that you welcome them, you feed them, you give them water, you give them shelter.
So, that may be romantic, in lots of circumstances, I mean we are after all living in our divided country that has lots of little civil wars going on, there is lots of violence around us. But I think we can explore it further and I think that there are probably people here who can say more about what that ubuntu feeling is and how it is manifesting. There is one big thing we should look at in planning a way for Buddhist ideas to settle in this country. There may be a way in which we could stop conceiving of ourselves as, or stop being so much, the small elitist movement, the elitist and atomised gatherings around Buddhist ideas.
I think the other idea that would be very interesting to explore, because it is really common across Africa, is the role of the ancestors. And I think in a sense the importance of ancestors is also in some extent an extension of ubuntu, It lets you appreciate who you are and where you are in a very holistic sense, and I think that this is very strong in Bud-dhism too in the sense of lineage, in the sense of honouring the tradition you came from.
Those are the two things that stand out, and I think we can start a discussion about them. What I can't say is that this is what African religion is. There are very few generalisa-tions that you can make about African Religions. Veneration of ancestors, ubuntu, these are prominent in Southern Africa.
But I think another generalisation that you can make is more is that the genius of African Religion lies in being incredibly adaptive. That may be a way of looking at transmis-sion. Christianity, coming to Africa, was quickly absorbed and dramatically transformed. If you look at the most successful Christian transmissions in Africa, you could see them in the Zion Christian Church, which is based around Pietersburg. They are perhaps the most popular Christian church in Southern Africa, maybe on the whole African continent. Another example is the Shembe church in Kwazulu/Natal, they are one of the most popular churches there. These churches have an enormous number of other practices which could be said to come from traditional religion, but that's also dangerous, because they come from already adapted religions into the mainstream. Religion in Africa is in every sense dynamic. So I would say, if anybody expects a pure transmission of Buddhist ideas, think again. They would probably get very, very dynamic and radical adaptation of these and these would probably go far beyond the dreams and wishes of the proselytisers. So I think that this also suggests that there is something about this religion that is very much about being useful in the present. There is a lot of activity around things like health and fertility., I wonder if the conversation between Buddhists and Africans shouldn't start by looking at the present, at the poverty and the need to resolves technical and ethical themes.
On translation, a Buddhist translation group in South Africa would be a wonderful opportunity for creativity. The missionary who brings the word of translation, must be there. Because when you translate you also learn to express the language. It became a very dynamic discussion. Christianity got its own energy and especially its African politics while its missionaries translated

Clasquin : Can I come in on that point? Translation was also a very divisive device. You would have this missionary translating the Bible into the local dialect at Kuruman and another one translating into the dialect at Thaba Nchu and from that moment onwards those were two different languages. People may or may not thought of themselves as separate nations but from henceforth they would be classified as such. Which of course was further abused in the apartheid era. That is something that we'd have to be very careful with.

Hamilton: Ja, I think the important point of translation is that it is a very dynamic thing, it doesn't leave things untouched, it changes them quite dramatically, it does Africanise, it does in-digenise, but often it also goes way beyond whatever the actors involved expected.

Busakwe: African Religion is unfortunate that it has always been articulated by people who are themselves not African, not that one can't do that. I think that white persons from the West perhaps can say wonderful things about the religion, but I always feel that argumentation on African Religion, is scholarship, but also in a sense a discussion. Obviously my ar-gumentation of African Religion is also a discussion but a better one. Because I grew up in a home where we were encouraged to go to Sunday school but on Saturday evenings we would have an African traditional dance in the hall. My grandmother was a student, learning to become a traditional healer. So that is the environment in which I grew up. So my articulation can therefore carry much more weight, both in terms of experience and also in attempting to put this thing in a scholarly fashion. I am therefore very uncomforta-ble with the kind of articulations we often hear.
First of all, I think in most cases when the West articulates African Religion it does so, through the grid of Christianity and then begins to see for example, Jesus as a tradition-al healer. Now those kind of articulations are actually a little bit discomforting, to say the least, because I think that Jesus should not feature, should not be made to feature in Af-rican Religion , he does not have anything to do with African Religion, maybe African Theology, yes. But in African Religion, Jesus does not feature. Nor theism. These are con-cepts which are not found in African Religion. The idea of a supreme god, is almost insignificant or never of major importance in African Religion. So all of these things have come from Christian Theology, the way that African Religion is understood.
And I think we ought to know that in fact in Africa you cannot even articulate religion outside the life of people, in fact to do that it is to put it upside down in a sense, be-cause religion in Africa is invisible, you don't see it, you don't go to Sunday school, or to church or to a temple or whatever centre you go to. The main shrine in my grandmother's bedroom, was not visible in the way that you could extract it from the rest of the activity of the life of people, so I think even in defining African Religion one must be careful that you already are busy doing something else, something that is not part of the religion of Africa. It is not spiritual, it is not enclosed or autonomous. It's there but it is invisible.
When I was 18 I went to circumcision school and I stayed there for two months, and that is cultural, it is about religion, but it is also what happens in society because its acknowledged that a man needs to go to circumcision school and only then assume the responsibilities of a man. So that is religion but also something cultural . So I am saying that you can never define religion in Africa, for it is inseparable from the rest of life. So that religion is not out in the world of theology, but rather in the marketplace of Africa, that is where religion takes place Religion in Africa is never important for its own sake, it's never significant for itself, it's never important for the religion in itself.
In African religion you are performing, you are doing something. You consult a diviner when you need rain. It's always instrumental, it is about performing. It is never for its own sake. People are often quite clear why they do things and what they aiming at, important things like health, fertility, rain, protection or harmony in relationships. So that is what it is in Africa, religion always performs those kind of functions. So religion in Africa is very much part of a survival strategy and serves practical ends. Either immediate or remote, social or individual . So the religiosity as such carries no importance of status in Africa.

Clasquin: Danile, unfortunately you are today stuck with the task of representing several hundred million people, but I was wondering, what is your reaction to Buddhism, what is your view of Buddhism?

Busakwe: I spoke to someone at this conference yesterday, and I said to her, that I think the people with whom we have to deal is mainly the West, in exorcising the demon, from the West, we at least will be dealing with something different now, with the way that you Buddhists do religion, the African Religion, which will be another challenge, another exciting journey that we will have to take. But for me, what is very appealing in Buddhism is the sensitivity that truth cannot be mastered. And that for me is precisely of what, in fact, dominates African thought. I remember when I became a Christian I went to my grandmother and told her that now I found the truth and my grandmother said, my son, truth is something you have to die looking for, it is an eternal quest. The interesting aspect in the Buddhist religion for me is the absolute cautiousness, the belief that truth is the quest for which you will forever search. That for me is the liberating thing that I think could make Buddhism a very important dialogue partner for African religion.

 
 

 
 
  African Buddhists? some issues in Buddhist transmission across cultures Raoul Birnbaum
, University of California (Santa Cruz)

Introduction

 
We live in an era in which it is easy to move from here to there and mix this with that. It is so appealing to forge new musics out of a world beat, and so tempting to combine foods of sever-al continents to make a savoury, digestible, and nutritious stew. In this context, the notion of "Buddhism" in "Africa," as a social phenomenon of conscious choice rather than ethnic heritage, may seem entirely reasonable. Certainly it is no less reasonable than the notion of Buddhism in North America, although many of the fundamental social, political, and historical conditions are not the same. I hasten to add that it also is no less reasonable than the notion of Christianity in (sub-Saharan) Africa; and in some ways perhaps it is no less problematic.
"Africa" is not a concept or reality that I can explore at this moment in a useful manner, given the superficial state of my knowledge and experience. I would like, though, to devote some effort to reflections on the transmission of "Buddhism" across cultural boundaries.
Of course, it is not always clear what is being represented when the word "Buddhism" is employed, nor what assumptions have been made about this representation. Here I would like to be basic, and focus on the traditional Three Jewels of Buddha, Dharma, Sangha. There are many ways to define the Three Jewels. In this context, a useful approach might be a broad view that in-corporates a Mahayana perspective and includes the somewhat material and economic terms of the Vinaya. Thus the Buddha category includes historical and transhistorical beings, and also such matters as images, ritual halls and shrines; the Dharma category includes essential teachings, and also the written records in material form and verbal expositions of those teachings; and the Sangha refers most especially to human beings, the religious professionals and the lay members of the fourfold assembly. (A more technical definition, following for example Chinese termi-nology, would restrict this category to monks and nuns.) Offerings made to any one of the Three Jewels become part of that category. This simple portrayal of what assuredly is a complex and multi-stranded system is fairly standard within Buddhist discourse and should not be too controversial.
A full transmission of Buddhism across cultural boundaries involves, minimally, these three interconnected elements. Thus, one would expect images (conceptual and visual) of the Buddha, teachings (in written and verbal forms, and perhaps in new or indigenous media), and the formation of a community that includes religious professionals. This is not just a set of randomly gath-ered notions, but a complex bundle of inter-related factors and phenomena.
Sometimes, though, transmission of Buddhism is understood most fundamentally as transmission of the Dharma. One steadfast position seen in a range of texts and heard in the discours-es of some accomplished teachers is that the Buddhist Dharma is universally valid as an explanatory scheme and liberating method. The Dharma works for all beings at all places in all times. It follows that because this is so, the Dharma is eminently transmittable or transplantable. If the Dharma were not characterized by this universal efficacy, then at the level of deep religious ideals the attempt to transmit it from the past to the present or from one place to another would make no sense. It would be a fruitless act. (Although I recognize the importance of economic and polit-ical power and other such factors as compelling motives for transmission, at this moment these factors will rest quietly in the background.)
A practitioner may accept the view of universal efficacy from an absolute position, yet also recognize from a conventional position that what we have come to know as Buddhist teachings are expressed in human languages of representation for human beings to digest and respond to. At this basic human level, which is the level at which the Sangha takes visible form, there are numerous key issues with which one grapples. In our conventional world, all humans are set in time and place, rooted to cultural assumptions that provide us with the security of a particularized common sense. This common sense is so deeply ingrained and out of the way of the stumblings of conscious thought that it enables us to function smoothly and successfully within certain cul-tural bounds. Deep problems occur when a religious system framed within one cultural setting is established elsewhere. Therefore, among the central issues of a conference in 1998 on "Bud-dhism and Africa," we ought to investigate the basic questions that are pertinent to this transmission across cultures, to this crossing over bounds: what is it that is transmitted, what is the process, and what is the result?
Such questions are too large for this short paper. Here I would like to address briefly two related questions, somewhat smaller than the ones set out above, namely: What problems make it difficult to transmit across cultures the notion of "becoming a Buddha"? And in what ways are body practices or body issues basic to these problems? Thus, my focus drops away from abstrac-tions to matters surrounding the more concrete anthropological notion of "African Buddhists." I will focus most especially on issues arising from alterity (difference, otherness) and mimesis (similarity, imitation). I will draw brief historical examples - for the particular purposes here, snapshots or sketches, rather than the detailed representations of an architectural draftsman - from the Chinese traditions that I study as scholar and practitioner, as well as the North American Buddhist traditions within which I take a place. I trust that some relevance to Southern African situa-tions will be readily apparent.
One further introductory remark. The US is a polyglot, multi-cultural, multi-racial nation. So too, in a somewhat different way, is South Africa. Both have terrible histories of invasion and colonization by light-skinned Europeans. In these histories, some representatives of a "universal" religion were active or passive agents of oppression, and the discourse of invasion and coloni-zation was tied to religious principles. In a political and emotional sense, then, it may strike some as awkward to see the introduction of another universal religion from foreign shores to a place where historical problems remain within sharp living memory. This matter should not be hidden, I think; it has been ever present in my mind as I have prepared this essay.

The charge of opposites

The appearance of alterity has been a crucial factor in the histories of Buddhist transmission to China and the US That is, when Buddhism was brought to these places, many of its constitu-ent elements appeared profoundly different from that which already existed there. This alterity, or "otherness," is a powerfully charged phenomenon that pulls at the imagination and emotions in a play of attraction and repulsion.
We should note from the start that alterity is ingrained within the basic formation of the Buddhist enterprise. While Buddhist teachings are structured within the overall contours of Indian society as one among several religious approaches, they present a vision that is deeply opposed to complicity with the underpinnings of conventional daily life; and the Buddhist social order of religious professionals (the monks and nuns) deliberately steps out of what most would consider an ordinarily productive existence. So what we have crossing borders is a teaching and way of life that at heart concerns itself with alterity, with opposition and difference. Because it is foreign, its alterity is redoubled as it crosses cultural borders. Thus it appears all the more alluring and all the more repellent.
For some persons, everything about that difference is deemed attractive, at least at first. Apparently charming exotic qualities, perhaps poorly understood, leave ample room for projection of all manner of interpretive meaning. The notion that "Buddhism" is not "this" (whatever one already has) but "that," something utterly different, signifies for some the goodness and rightness of an ill-defined phenomenon perceived in a purple haze.
To take an example that I know quite well because I lived through it, in the United States at the time of the Vietnam War, many persons of student age were profoundly alienated from the conventional forces controlling the larger society. These forces (and their personification in the form of individuals in positions of authority) were regarded, often for good reason, as deeply corrupt, untrustworthy, even malevolent in their actions and intentions. In that era, some young persons eagerly embraced alternatives, although not necessarily with discrimination. Conventional religions, most especially the various forms of Christianity, were understood to be deeply implicated in the war activities (although there also were significant religious figures, and others with no fame, who spoke out with courage in those days). Distrust for the established order sparked a growing appreciation for the relatively powerless indigenous cultures that survive mainly in the western parts of the country. Greater contact and knowledge in turn led to realizations of the roles of Christian missions in the subjugation and deliberate destruction of those indigenous cul-tures, and an awareness that one of the justifications for this subjugation process has been the act of propagating a universal teaching (albeit in various sectarian forms). It seemed that conven-tional religion, utterly complicit in the formation of the established order and the direct wielding of its considerable power, was an oppressive and heartless agent of suffering.
In this context, Buddhism - encountered primarily through a limited number of books of wildly varying quality and through a few teachers working in the US - was understood as "not Chris-tianity" (nor Judaism, etc., and even for some a "pure" path that had nothing to do with "religion"). It was understood as a path and social institution that was not violent, and apparently not implicated in any way in the coarse and arbitrary wielding of power within our society that terrified and enraged so many in that era. So "Buddhism" - whatever was understood by this term - was "good" (actually, I suppose the more common term was "groovy"). Beyond the abstract formulations, these views also turned more specifically toward individuals: representatives of the old order by and large were spurned, while mysterious and at times incomprehensible figures in robes were welcomed and honoured.
This kind of interest and appreciation for Buddhism was not necessarily subtle, nor sophisticated and discerning, but it was extremely important as an initial stage of transmission. This is the attractive power of alterity, in which magnified difference serves as an auspicious mask that cloaks an unexplored reality.
To raise another relevant example, as the Han order crumbled in second century CE China and its ideological underpinnings of socio-cosmological principles suddenly appeared empty of resonance, some highly educated and thoughtful persons in this crisis of meaning consciously reached to the foreign teaching offered to them. It seemed markedly different from what they al-ready had, from what clearly had failed, and this otherness bore an undeniable attraction.
In the cases of both twentieth century US and second century China, there were circumstances that heightened the exoticism of the "foreign" element and created ample space for the projec-tion of various illusions onto a mostly blank screen. Language problems were significant. In both cases, the first Buddhist monks came from abroad to serve immigrant groups, and active teach-ing of members of the larger host population was a second-stage phenomenon. These foreign teachers often communicated through interpreters, whose skills may have been suspect. Few texts were translated, these chosen largely by random happenstance and often transmuted into new forms that did not fully correspond to the meaning or intent of the originals. Not infrequently, these "translations" made little sense to the target audience; or they made a kind of wrong sense, reconfigured by inept or canny translators to speak to preconceived needs of the intended readers.
The points made above belong to a cursory or even coarse analysis. Equally as significant, I think, were conceptual problems that arose out of difference. For example, the notions of "self" commonly understood in US psychological and philosophical discourse may be profoundly different from their analogs in Indic Buddhist texts, and also very different from understandings at various times in China. In the transmission to China, this issue played out very awkwardly, and now in the transmission to the US - which flows from many cultural sources, all at once - there also is much confusion and stubborn assertion. In this matter, we see an alterity that may not be recognized as such: while Indic and Chinese Buddhist discussions of self are read by some in North America with great interest, in fact the most basic frame of reference for these teachings may be fundamentally different from their confident Western interpretations.
In contemporary China in the post-Mao era, there has been a religious revival that has included a significant increase in the Buddhist monastic population. In the extended conversations in China with novices and younger monks that I have been able to carry out over the past ten years, one of the several elements that has been mentioned repeatedly in discussions of motivations for leaving home is that of alterity: a Buddhist way of life is understood as a life that is separated conceptually and practically from the quagmire of contemporary political-economic pursuits. To a certain extent this is true, as it always has been in Buddhist formulations. But one of the great problems for these younger monks is the discovery soon enough that the alterity is not as ex-treme as they had expected or hoped: they haven't escaped from China at all.
The fact of alterity - of profound difference - also provides a point of repulsion. Its foreignness provides a feeling that this teaching is "not ours," that it contradicts and threatens the stable security of culturally-ingrained common sense. Buddhism's foreign origin, whatever its permutations historically, have served as a rallying point for arguments against its utility in China, begin-ning in the early centuries of transmission and recurring periodically right up to the present era. This alterity also frightens some conservative Christian groups in the US, who consider Buddhism devilish and demonic.
There is another angle to the issue of alterity and separation or repulsion that is highly significant to the Buddhist transmission process, at least as observed in my home country. In North America, we are deluged with teachers from all over the Asian Buddhist world who seek to reach out to the vast possibilities that seem capable of arising in this wealthy, confident, and curious land. These teachers transmit sets of Buddhist teachings and practices that are particular to their cultural heritage, and they form separate lineages and encapsulated "sanghas" rather than a larger four-fold sangha that extends throughout the territory of the continent and then reaches out without discrimination to monastics and laypersons worldwide. There is a tendency among many teachers to maintain communications and social relations within the transplanted Buddhist circles that derive from their original culture; these teachers may be somewhat isolated, with minimal external relations. There are many factors at play here, including for some a sense of competition in a limited marketplace.
As an end result, there is an atomized quality to much of North American Buddhist life: it is somewhat gaseous in that each molecule seems to require considerable unimpeded space around it. For example, I discovered on a visit several years ago to give a talk at a famous and long-established Zen centre in California that it is located just a few city blocks from a Korean Buddhist temple, but the principals of each have never met. My Zen centre hosts seemed shocked that I was surprised.
In addition to a lack of intercultural interaction, in some cases old sectarian or lineage rivalries and disgruntlements have been carried forward to this new setting. One of the results is a kind of confusion absorbed by some students, who bear defensive (and occasionally fear-ridden) aversions to "other" forms of Buddhism and are repelled by their alterity in relation to the "pure Buddhism" or "highest teachings" they have received. An extreme example is a university student of mine this past fall, a young disciple of a Tibetan monk (and caretaker of his small Dharma centre), who found that he simply was unable to read and discuss pre-Mahayana texts in a level manner; he dropped the course after causing considerable turmoil in discussion sections. Another student, a serious and sharp-thinking Buddhist practitioner in his twenties, raised this issue of sectarianism with me and remarked that as much as he was interested in the Buddhist-Christian dialogues he recently had attended, he wondered why there were no Buddhist-Buddhist dialogues. While some may in a sense over-identify with the cultural origins of the Buddhist tradition they study, asserting that it is best and all others are inferior or incomplete, some other North American Buddhist converts respond with deep unease to the alterity of Asian origins. It is not un-common in certain Buddhist circles to observe the position that there is both a "true Buddhism" and various "cultural Buddhisms;" a smart and capable person can abstract the true stuff, the es-sence, from the cultural stuff. I believe this position arises in part from the relationship of unequal power that emerges from deeply felt but largely unarticulated and consciously denied racist attitudes; it provides one reason for why there is so little commingling in the US of more recent converts with so-called ethnic Buddhists (Asian immigrants and their descendants). Not surpris-ingly, given the tenor of contemporary North American life, "true Buddhism" is rather unreligious and has a strong emphasis on psychological elements and atomized personal identity; alterity is softened by dramatic adaptation to prominent contours of the host culture.

Bodies of recognition

Several years ago my friend Jueqing, an elderly nun from Wutaishan, took me to a small monastery in the northern Chinese city of Taiyuan to meet one of her contemporaries, an even more aged monk famed for his practice accomplishments. In the course of our conversation, he looked directly at me and said with great intensity: "If you engage in practice (xiuxing), it means that you seek to become a Buddha." This statement was meant as a sharp challenge to the foreigner who had come for instruction.
One can gain some abstract sense from various texts as well as from paintings and sculptures about what it means to be a Buddha: a Buddha is absolutely peaceful, imperturbable, utterly at ease, omniscient, and so forth. In the Vimalakirti-sutra, for example, Shakyamuni says:

Ananda, a physical body, impressive features, lineage, precepts, meditation, wisdom, emancipations, the insight of emancipations, powers, fearlessnesses, properties not shared by oth-ers, great compassion, great pity, the observance of proper demeanor, as well as a fixed life span, the power to preach the Law, to teach and convert others, to lead living beings to en-lightenment, to purify the Buddha lands, and to assimilate the Law of other Buddhas -- all these are possessed equally by all the various Buddhas. (Watson 1997:124-5)

He goes on to speak of the great bodhisattvas:

No wise person should try to estimate the abilities of the bodhisattvas. All the deepest places in the sea can still be fathomed, but the meditation, wisdom, power to retain the teachings, eloquence, and all the various merits of the bodhisattvas are immeasurable. Ananda, you and the others had best forget about the actions of the bodhisattvas.(Watson 1997:125)

Some traditions, such as the prajñaparamita and its relatives (including the Chan traditions still practised in China), describe the state of mind of a Buddha through arguments of negation (it is not this, not that) or through statements that step away from all referents that may be affirmed or denied. Discourse of this sort provides a representation of a mental position that is stable be-yond recourse to any conventional standpoint within the world. This insistence on an ultimate position is fundamental to several key strands of Buddhist practice traditions.
Beyond description, what is required to become a Buddha? What factors are needed to achieve this extraordinary goal? Many Buddhist traditions provide a path, but from some perspectives the view that "nothing" is required makes perfect sense. The ability to achieve a fully awakened state is intrinsic to all humans, so no external factors are crucial to this accomplishment, nor is any "doing" required. Some of my comrades in Chan practice in China, both relative youngsters and senior teachers, are emphatic about intrinsic possibilities. They sometimes give me texts, such as the eighth-century Chan master Huihai's Essential teachings on instantaneous entrance to the way (Dunwu rudao yaomen lun), to deepen my understanding of this point.
But, you see, they give me texts, and talk with me, and we sit together on the meditation benches of the Chan Hall, and we participate in daily rituals that take place in special buildings filled with sculptures and paintings. Theoretically, it is possible to become a Buddha all by yourself, but a wide range of texts and living practice traditions suggests that various circumstances may be crucially important as supports for this attainment. These key factors include such matters as sound teachings given in an appropriate order, accomplished teachers (most especially exemplars of sustained practice), good friends in this work (kalyanamitras), the time and opportunity for practice, and a comprehensive environment for support, including a visual culture that prompts and sustains the imagination.
Let us consider this from some different angles. From my assuredly limited viewpoint, I would like to suggest that both confidence and imagination are crucial to the accomplishment of becoming a Buddha. This accomplishment requires the considerable confidence that if one harnesses an extraordinary will power to follow an outlined path, one eventually will reap the pre-dicted reward. (There is tension between this position and the practice in some Chan lineages of generating great doubt as a method for attainment, but that method - which may be daunting in its destabilizing qualities - has deep at its base a foundation in confidence: the notion that it is appropriate to risk all stability by generating and maintaining a great doubt of bone-rattling resonance.)
The issue of confidence perhaps is best left for another moment, in order to turn to its close relative in these matters, imagination. That is, it strikes me that in order to become a Buddha, you must be able to generate the thought of that possibility, not only the abstract view that a human could do this, but the more focussed notion that you yourself have the capacity for this accom-plishment. This may require considerable imaginative power for any person, no less one who feels herself or himself a foreigner within this religious system.
It is safe to say, I think, that it has not been a common goal in any era, including this particular post-Mao moment, for a Chinese person to be set on becoming a Buddha. Reasonable esti-mates suggest that at no time in China has more than 1% of the general population registered within the monastic orders (Gernet 1995:12). Based on literary records and oral traditions, it also is reasonable to assert that there have been some in every generation who have been dead set on attainment; certainly I know from living in monasteries that this remains the case even in these extraordinarily difficult post-modern times in China.
Properly trained monks and nuns in the Chinese tradition are urged to think in terms of liberation from the moment of their first head-shaving and acceptance of the ten novice precepts. Not all, of course, are well-trained, nor do they sustain this aspiration, but a Chinese monk, nun, or layperson who gives rise to this goal (and thus imagines that she or he can attain it) is situated within a context, for the whole Buddhist enterprise has been extraordinarily visible in China over a period that stretches now to almost two thousand years. This long history of Buddhist practice in China includes texts and teachers, a monastic establishment with buildings and an economic base, active lay associations, and so forth and so on. Importantly, because there are many texts and tales about accomplished cultivators, and there always are a few heroic figures in each generation, an aspirant has accessible models to follow who can be set as examples to gauge his pro-gress. Directly at hand and physically resembling aspiring cultivators, as if they were gazing into a mirror, these accomplished masters have a powerful and immediate function as guideposts on the way.
In contrast, there is no established indigenous context for the notion of Buddhist practice in non-Asian countries, such as my own North American homeland. The Buddhas and bodhisattvas are exotic and most teachers are foreigners, recent immigrants or visitors. Therefore, for persons such as North Americans, Europeans, and Africans, it may be difficult to imagine success in the quintessential Buddhist endeavour, let alone achieve it. (Here I am thinking of more than a flash of youthful enthusiasm, but rather of long years of dedication in which factors such as one's confidence and imagination support and sustain the endeavour) It is important to acknowledge that many Buddhist practice traditions assert that deep accomplishment and even full realization may be achieved by any person. Still, humans are set in time and place, and steeped in culture, so they may have obstructive views regarding what may be accomplished.
Significantly, humans have bodies. While this is a matter that defines a certain shared way of experiencing the world which contributes to the notion of the unity of the species, humans are deeply invested in encultured views about these bodies, including judgments regarding their outer appearance and habitual practices. This is a problem of surface, and it impinges on the mimetic necessity basic to Buddhist cultivation. It is a big problem, which should not be ignored or dismissed.
For example, when the seventh-century Chan patriarch Huineng first sought teachings as a novice, according to the tale he was derided for his southern origins; some have suggested that he was unusually dark-skinned, and the south at that time, from the Han point of view, was a scarcely tamed miasmic wilderness of indigenous peoples. It was assumed from these external quali-ties that Huineng did not have the capacity for full attainment. Alterity thus is seen as an obstacle from the point of view of the teacher. As the Platform Sutra recounts:

...Hongren asked me: "Where are you from that you came to this mountain to make obeisance to me? Just what is it that you are looking for from me?"

I replied: "I am from Lingnan, a commoner from Xinzhou. I have come this long distance only to make obeisance to you. I am seeking no particular thing, but only the Buddhadharma."

The Master then reproved me, saying: "If you're from Lingnan, then you're a barbarian. How can you become a Buddha?"

I replied: "Although people from the south and people from the north differ, there is no north and south in Buddha nature. Although my barbarian's body and your body are not the same, what difference is there in our Buddha nature?"

In the end, according to the tales, he became a great sage. Still, we cannot expect all persons to have this kind of stubborn confidence when such obstacles are put before them. Thus, the key matter to discuss here is the problem of resemblance or mimesis. That is, if all Buddhas look like x, and I look like y, how is it possible to become a Buddha in this very life?
Mimesis, of course, is closely tied to alterity, and the denial of mimetic possibility raises significant questions. If profound accomplishment is the province of other people (however defined as Han Chinese, Tibetans, males, light-skinned persons, etc.), what is my place within this system? If some Buddhist teachers do not take their students seriously - whether consciously or not - because of appearance, how can a complete transmission across cultural boundaries be achieved?
How does this play out in some historical examples? The initial stage of Buddhist transmission from India and Central Asia to China took several hundred years and was characterized by a kind of random and confused quality. In early tales, the "Buddha" was sometimes portrayed as a golden deity who could fly and had protective powers. Chinese Buddhist images of these early centuries had the facial features of foreign visitors. It took several centuries before Buddhist images in China began to resemble Chinese persons, before the faces of Buddhas and bodhi-sattvas had become Chinese and their bodies were portrayed in an indigenous Chinese style.
A fundamental step in the indigenous appropriation of the foreign religion is precisely this, the creation of visual images that represent the key deities as an indigenous pantheon. It then be-comes far more possible to imagine oneself taking a place with them. Given that some Buddhist cultivation methods involve learning body practices in conscious imitation of models (sitting and sleeping like a Buddha, for instance), it is important that one be able to identify in a realistic manner with this model; this is the harnessing of mimetic impulse to religious ends, so that one imi-tates the outer appearance of one's goal in order eventually to attain it.
It is not coincidental that it was precisely in the period that images became recognizably Chinese - the second half of the fourth through the early fifth centuries - that the first well-known Chinese masters began teaching (such as Dao'an and Huiyuan), and the fragmented multiple lineages of the various foreign teachers began to coalesce into a more cohesive indigenous social system. In this era many important texts were translated into highly readable Chinese that reasonably reflected the contents of the originals, and commentaries on these works were composed in traditional Chinese fashion. In addition, various native works appeared that spoke directly to the indigenous audience; by this time authors were able to digest the materials more thoroughly and go beyond the previous stage, which was characterized by a kind of intellectually immature presentation of Buddhist concepts not in their own right, but in terms of pre-existing philosophi-cal-religious ideas. All of these phenomena - imagery in indigenous style, more comprehensive presentation of Dharma on its own terms using indigenous discourse, mature teachers of the host culture - are bundled together in interaction to form an important stage in Buddhist transmission of the Three Jewels.
If we look to the situation in North America, we could assert by comparison that the transmission process is still at an early stage. There are many atomized lineages, some basic texts have appeared in clear and readable translations while others are fragmentary and some read as if they were gibberish. Images in "Dharma Centres" almost invariably are foreign-made or foreign in inspiration: Japanese, Chinese, Tibetan, Vietnamese, and so forth.
The North American situation is complex because it is multi-ethnic. Asian(-American) bodies and faces are represented in Buddhist imagery, but the physical features of those such as Afri-can-Americans, Latinos, and various European-derived persons are rarely if ever depicted. I am aware that some North American Buddhists who have spent considerable time training in Asian countries feel entirely comfortable with the features of those images, with no sense of disjunction, but for others who have not had the benefit of such experience the visual culture of North American Buddhism may remain exotic and foreign.

Flexible bodies

A full transmission of Buddhism across borders is a process that is culturally negotiated over many years. It took several centuries for Buddhism to become thoroughly integrated in Chinese society and for it to become a significant part of Chinese life at all levels. After the first large migrations of Chinese and Japanese workers to the US, a century passed before any significant Buddhist impact was felt within the host culture (here I think especially of the interest in Zen amongst intellectuals, artists, and rebels of the 1950s and 1960s). Several decades later there has been an extraordinary increase in such interest, but still it is not large or influential in relation to the total population.
In order for the transmission to be complete, it must encompass all of the Three Jewels. The faces of the Buddhas must be recognizable and identifiable. The teachings have to make sense within the logic and vocabulary of the host culture, and eventually they should be so well digested that they can be expressed in a natural way by indigenous teachers. And there must be a se-cure place for the humans engaged in these practices, especially the religious professionals, within social and political structures. From a material point of view, the monks and nuns are a surplus or luxury, given their nonproduction of goods or labour, so there must also be room within the economic system for their support.
Buddhism can be seen as an institution, but it also is a personal matter, in that a significant element is expressed through the minds, mouths, and bodies of individuals. I would like to return to some brief comments, snapshots of a sort, on body practices in order to bring this essay to a close.
I have asserted that the twinned elements of alterity and mimesis are crucial to thinking about transmission of Buddhism across cultures. One key area where this plays out is the realm of body practice and the visual culture of bodies. The stillness of the seated meditator may pique the curiosity of those whose bodies are in constant motion, or it may be familiar and attractive to those who have learned that kind of quietude. But also the act of quiet retreat may cause considerable problems in societies where trustworthy religious practice is a public phenomenon, and those who carry out activities in concealment may be suspected of witchcraft. The concealed body of the retreatant, something that gains so much respect in Asian Buddhist traditions, may be a fearsome and threatening object in different cultural circumstances.
In some cultures the religious body is a body in motion, and it moves with a beat. In China's northern Yunnan province, local Buddhist traditions incorporate this prominent aspect of Bai minority culture: on important holidays, lay societies make dance offerings in front of the Buddha Hall to the sound of local musicians. Without this flexibility within the system, perhaps Bai religious impulses would not extend to Buddhist spheres.
The matter of bowing and prostration is extraordinarily significant in both actual and symbolic terms. It is a practice method that cultivates and makes visible the disciplined body, a matter that is fundamental to notions of attainment within Buddhist practice systems. And it is a sign of flexible and wholehearted acceptance of Buddhist traditions: it makes visible the ability to loos-en attachment to self. The ancient Indian method of prostration - a graceful and ordered process in which one places four limbs and the forehead on the ground in honour of the Buddhas and other great beings, including humans worthy of respect - was adopted in China as a distinctive Buddhist practice. It can be seen with variations in all the Asian Buddhist traditions. In contrast to a ready embrace of some of the mental disciplines, and real appreciation for Buddhist methods by which the mindstream is tamed of its unruly turnings to flow with powerful clarity, in some European and North American circles the very basic practice of bowing has met with highly assertive and extraordinarily unbending resistance. To engage in this practice simply is a step too far, too soon, in the transmission process.
Resistance to basic religious body practices such as prostration makes clear how deeply embedded in culture humans may be, and how profoundly difficult and complex the matter of Bud-dhist transmission across cultures has proven in actual experience, rather than abstract possibility. It is a slow process, continually negotiated, that must go beyond an emphasis on mental or in-tellectual aspects to be truly successful. What will happen to Buddhist movements in North America, and now in Africa, are matters that can only be seen across the long arc of history. For those who seek to play roles in these histories, the complexity of the challenge is clear.
 

Notes


References

Chidester, D 1996. Savage systems: Colonialism and comparative religion in Southern Africa. Charlottesville: University press of Virginia.

Fields, R 1986. How the swans came to the lake. Boston: Shambala.

Gernet, J 1995. Buddhism and Chinese society: an economic history from the fifth to the tenth centuries. New York: Columbia University press. (trl F Verellen).

Gottlieb, A & Graham, P 1993. Parallel worlds. Chicago: University of Chicago press.

Watson, B 1997 (trl). The Vimalakirti Sutra New York: Columbia University press.

Wu Hung 1986. Buddhist elements in early Chinese art. Artibus Asiae, vol 47, pp 263-316.

Yampolsky, PB 1967. The Platform Sutra of the sixth patriarch. New York: Columbia University press.
 
Discussion

Question: Would you see monks and nuns as absolutely essential? Would you say that South African Buddhism is only really established when there are South African monks and nuns?

Birnbaum: As a layperson with monastic training, I would say that there is a Euro-American phenomenon, which may evolve into an African phenomenon, in which strong establishment of Buddhism has occurred without a large cohort of professionals. When I say professionals, I think especially of monastics to cultivation of inner experience; at least they have the possibility of that. As a layperson, I think I'm trying very hard, but I recognise that the opportunities for a layperson to practise in the same way as a monk or nun are limited. It is a different kind of experience. The Buddhist tradition speaks of a fourfold sangha, and I think we need to have a fourfold sangha, because it has proven that it works. I would like to see more monks and nuns in the United States from the various cultures who are really devoted to cultivation. I don't think we can have a really strong Buddhist tradition without real cultivators. It's very hard to be a layperson. I personally am fortunate; my profession is Buddhist Studies, but even so, I have administrative meetings to attend and I think those who can free their minds of that stuff are far more fortunate

Comment: One thing we should never forget is that the monastic tradition cannot continue without the lay tradition. Without their support of the monks, Buddhism will die quickly. It is our service to our ordained people to give, and if we don't have anything to give, the dharma won't grow. So I think both have incredible value
 
 

 
 
 
Ubuntu Dharma Buddhism and African thought Michel Clasquin, University of South Africa


 
As Buddhism enters African soil, it encounters a number of competing ideologies and religions. Western secularism has not entered the African psyche beyond the ranks of a few urbanised intellectuals, but the indigenous philosophy and religion of Africa is still strong. Christianity and Islam, too, have made a number of converts on the continent, and both have been established here for so long, especially in North Africa, that they may well be regarded as indigenous religions in their own right. Since my focus is not only on Africa, but on Southern Africa in particular, I will not deal with Islam. Christianity and Buddhism, however, have been engaged in dialogue for some years, though not much in the African context. That leaves us with indigenous African religious and philosophical thought.
It would simply be asking too much for us to hope to find explicit references to Buddhist concepts such as the Four Noble Truths or the five skhandhas in the thinking of African sages. Yet we may nevertheless hope that we can find points of similarities, thought-patterns that do not diverge from the Buddhist ones so far as to make communication impossible. If we could find such potential points of contact, they could serve as "hooks" on which to start the process of reconciling African and Buddhist thought. Simultaneously, it should be possible to find areas in which Buddhism and African thought are so far opposed to each other that they could be significant stumbling blocks unless handled very skilfully indeed.
The first question, then, is to define what we mean by "African thought". There has been an ongoing debate among African academics whether there is such a thing as an indigenous African philosophy. Two distinct camps have emerged: the first looks towards the past, to traditional African society, religion and folk wisdom, and tries to draw out a coherent philosophy from this. A significant part of this group has a deep interest in Egyptology, attempting to show not only that there is a link between the beliefs and thoughts of ancient Egypt and those of contemporary Af-rican people, but also, and more controversially, that Egyptian (ie African) philosophy was directly responsible for creating Greek (ie western) philosophy. This effort came to public attention most recently with the 1987 publication of Bernal's (1987) Black Athena, but has been ongoing at least since Diops' work The Cultural Unity of black Africa in the 1950's. Western scholars have not received this line of thought with much enthusiasm. I do not intend to enter this debate here, except to note, with Mbiti (1969:7), that "a balance between these extremes is (surely) more reasonable". The other group is more interested in the future of African thought than in its past - it looks to an African philosophy that will assist in the modernisation of African society.
Wiredu (1977:176) speaks for the latter group when he criticises the way African traditional thought has long been compared with that of western technocracy - he believes it would be more apposite to contrast it to the folk wisdom of Europe:

... the least that African philosophers and foreign well-wishers can do ... is to refrain, in this day and age, from serving up the usual congeries of unargued conceptions about gods, ghosts and witches in the name of African philosophy. ... The habit of talking of African philosophy as if all African philosophy is traditional carries the implication, probably not al-ways intended, that Modern Africans have not been trying, or worse still, ought not to try, to philosophise in a manner that takes account of present day developments in human knowledge, logical, mathematical, scientific, literary etc. ... African nationalists in search of an African identity, Afro-Americans in search of their African roots and western foreigners in search of exotic diversion - all demand an African philosophy that shall be fundamentally different from western philosophy, even if it means the familiar witches' brew.

This directly affects my argument, for if he is correct then African thought, as commonly perceived and presented by the traditionalists, would be more nearly comparable to the "little tradi-tion" Buddhism of many Buddhist countries, the popular Buddhism of processions, festivals and making merit, than with the official Buddhist teachings. Nevertheless, while keeping this quali-fication in mind, let us see if we can find points of contact between Africa and Buddhism.
It is commonly stated that Africans are monotheists in essence. And it is certainly true that authors such as Mbiti have given us much anthropological and linguistic material on god-concepts among African peoples. But some scholars have questioned whether this is not really a case of reading the Christian monotheistic God-concept back into African religion. And Kamalu's (1990:40 ff) explication of the African concept of God differs considerably from most western ones: he explains that African religion is monotheistic in its view of the Godhead, yet simultane-ously "symbolically polytheistic and pantheistic".
Kamalu (1990:24-27, xi) explains the African worldview as a "concert of opposites" between Being and Becoming, The Self and the External World, or Ethics and Moral Experience, and acknowledges that "It is an idea also found in Asian philosophies, notably the Taoist principles of Yin and Yang". In Buddhist terms, his explanation of the African worldview bears a striking resemblance to the Hua-yen teaching of the interaction of li and shih.
The concept of reincarnation or rebirth is not unknown in Africa, though it is far from universal, being reported in only a few African societies. Mbigi (1997:49), speaking as a member of the Shona people, says "The concept of reincarnation is central to our religion. The author personally believes in it", but a close examination of his writing shows that what he refers to as rein-carnation is more like the appearance of an Avatar in Hinduism, that is, a superior spirit taking residence in a human body. Mbiti (1969:164-5) mentions that there are cases where it is believed that a person has reappeared in a new body, and the infant may even be given the name of the supposedly reborn person. This kind of reincarnation is thought to occur chiefly within direct family lineages and there is no apparent reference to reincarnation into non-human bodies. In a striking parallel to Buddhist thinking on the subject, African thought does not posit an immortal soul that is reincarnated: "This is ... only a partial reincarnation, since not the entire person is reborn, but only certain of his characteristics or physical distinctions". But the parallel is incom-plete, for even if certain characteristics were to reappear in a new form, another part of the deceased person lives on in the spirit world, as an ancestor.
The belief in ancestors is posited by writers on the topic as a cornerstone of traditional African thought. Details vary from one African society to another, but in general it can be said that departed family members are thought to continue to exercise influence on their relatives as long as there is someone alive who remembers them by name. This is a stage of personal immortality. Once they are forgotten as individuals, they subside into an impersonal form of immortality as part of an amorphous ancestral line (Mbiti 1969:163). This shows a striking resemblance to the Mahayana Buddhist understanding of the "three bodies of the Buddha", where "personal immortality" would correspond to the samboghyakaya ,the glorified or enjoyment body, and "imper-sonal immortality" to the dharmakaya, that is, to suchness itself. Just as Buddhists may be said to revere the dharmakaya, but direct actual worship and veneration to historical or mythical Buddhas, so do Africans revere God, but approach him mainly through the ancestors. And indeed, here we have another point of contact between the two traditions: like the African ancestors, the Buddhas and bodhisattvas of Buddhism were once human beings like ourselves. Not in our direct line of descent, of course: the Buddhist emphasis on clerical celibacy would hardly make that feasible. But the mere fact that these great figures were once humans like ourselves puts them closer to the African ancestors than the ineffable deity of theistic religion.
In the belief in ancestors, we also find one of the main African explanations of the issue from which Buddhism derives its very raison d'etre: the question of suffering. While the ancestor is still in a state of personal immortality, the dead person is capable of communicating with and affecting the living. A displeased ancestor may send sickness, death and natural disasters to his living relatives. At first sight, this seems to be in conflict with the Buddhist diagnosis of suffering as being derived from selfish desire caused by ignorance. But let us not forget that the Buddhist universe has its own spirit-world, its own pantheons of gods and spirits. While the philosophical cause of suffering may be craving, this does not preclude the possibility that sentient beings, human or otherwise, may act as causal agents to bring about the actual working-out of karmic effects. A truly indigenous African form of Buddhism would have to deal with the belief in ances-tors and incorporate them in some way. This indeed has been one of Buddhism's greatest strengths: it has always seemed capable of incorporating indigenous beliefs in non-human beings into its own system of belief and practice.
Buddhism, too, has had a long tradition of respect for parents and elders. The consent of one's parents was needed to become a monk as far back as the time of the Buddha. In the Mahaya-na, evidence for the importance of revering one's elders can be seen in the production, or discovery, of texts such as the Filial Piety Sutra. At times, the language used in these texts becomes quite intense:

If there were a person who, for the sake of his father and mother, used a sharp knife to cut out his heart and liver so that the blood flowed and covered the ground and if he continued in this way to do this for hundreds of thousands of kalpas, never once complaining about the pain, that person still would not have repaid the deep kindness of his parents. (Nicholson [sa]: 23)

Sutras like these can be seen to be highly consonant with traditional Chinese, and especially Confucianist, ideas about the importance of filial piety. But there are indications in the Pali Canon too that Buddhism took one's duties towards the parents seriously. In the Singalovada Suttanta, for example, the layperson's duties towards parents are described as follows:

O householder's son, the mother and father, as the eastern direction, are to be tended by the child in five ways:
(1) (He thinks:) 'I, once supported, shall support them'
(2) 'I shall fulfill my duties towards them'
(3) 'I shall maintain the family lineage'
(4) 'I shall regulate my inheritance wisely'
(5) 'Then, later, I shall give offerings to propitiate their spirits'.

In this context, it is the last of these duties that is of special interest, for how does one "propitiate the spirit" of a dead relative who may already have been reborn in a new body? It may be a deferring gesture to popular religious practices at the time, or it may be a precursor to the Buddhist "transference of merit" ceremony still practised in certain Buddhist countries today after the death of a relative (Clasquin 1992:216).
Be that as it may, it is clear that while reverence for one's forebears has not been as central to Buddhist thought as it has been to the African, the theme does exist. One possibly fruitful ave-nue might therefore be to develop this theme further in Buddhist teaching.
If the only hope for immortality is to become an ancestor, then it stands to reason that fertility and procreation will be highly prized. And so it is in African society:

Unless a person has close relatives to remember him when he has physically died, then he is nobody and simply vanishes out of human existence like a flame when it is extinguished. Therefore it is a duty, religious and ontological, for everyone to get married ... Procreation is the absolute way of ensuring that a person is not cut off from personal immortality (Mbiti 1969: 26).

It is in one's family that the living-dead are kept in personal memory the longest, after their physical death. I have heard elderly people say to their grandchildren who seem to wait too long before getting married, "If you don't get married and have children, who will pour out libations to you when you die?" This is a serious philosophical concern among traditional Af-rican peoples. Unfortunate, therefore is the man or woman who has nobody to remember him (her) after physical death. To lack someone close who keeps the departed in their personal immortality is the worst misfortune and punishment that any person could suffer. To die without getting married and without children is to be completely cut off from the human socie-ty, to become disconnected, to become an outcast and to lose all links with mankind (Mbiti 1969:134).

Here lies a major potential clash between Buddhism and African religion. Buddhism has throughout its history been at best neutral towards sexuality and procreation. More typical has been the idea that procreation, more than any other human activity, keeps the "wheel of birth and death" spinning and prevents us from attaining nirvana. Yet this is not a new challenge: much the same problem existed when Buddhism entered China. There too, the maintenance of the familial line was thought to be one of the cardinal duties of people. A close inspection of how Bud-dhism managed to become a major part of Chinese religious and philosophical life despite this "handicap" may turn out to be of major value to our investigation.
It is striking that, in the first of the above quotations, Mbiti uses the simile of a candle being extinguished to illustrate the most undesirable fate possible. In Buddhism, of course, the same figure of speech is commonly used to illustrate nirvana, which in that system is the most desirable outcome of human endeavour (technically, one could say that nirvana is beyond desirability and undesirability, but in practice it serves as the much-to-be-desired Summum Bonum of Buddhist activity). Does this imply that there is a basic irreconcilability between Buddhism and Afri-can thought? Or am I exaggerating the importance of the different uses of the same metaphor?
Even in the western world, which has its own traditions of social and sexual withdrawal into monastic seclusion, and its own mystical traditions that stress the otherness of God, it can be difficult to explain the Buddhist idea of enlightenment. Often it comes across as a rather complicated way of committing suicide. But let us recall that metaphysical speculation on nirvana was discouraged by the Buddha. This is expressed in many places in the Buddhist scriptures, most famously in the Cula-Malunkyasutta , often called the "Parable of the Arrow" in the western world. It is presented as no more and no less than the end of suffering. And suffering, whether we think of it as caused by craving or as the result of the ancestors' displeasure, is universal.
Nor is the philosophical position of Buddhism in Africa a unique situation. It may be difficult to describe the position of the Enlightened One in indigenous terms, but Islam and Christianity have encountered the same problem: "The position of Muhammad ... seems difficult to relate to traditional concepts, just as Africans find it impossible to relate Jesus Christ to anything from their traditional concepts and histories" (Mbiti 1969:251). Such difficulties have not prevented Christianity and Islam from making millions of converts in Africa. In the process, Islam seems to have been more successful at maintaining its doctrinal purity than Christianity, or to put it another way, Africans have been more ready to use Christianity as a base for the creation of a creative synthesis with African religion.
Another aspect of African thought that crops up quite often in the literature is that of communalism. Africans, it is said, think and act not as individuals, but as members of a community. Of course, it was not too long ago that the same point was made about Asians, and it is an easy position to parody. The point of the argument seems to be rather to act as a rhetorical counterpoint to the presumed "individualism" of the western world. African men and women are certainly not worker bees or termites with no sense of individuality apart from their membership of the hive - they are thinking human beings who are perfectly aware of their individual existence, just as westerners are fully aware that they are members of a community. Perhaps the difference lies not in levels of awareness, but in the value attached to individualism or communalism: "... individuality is not negated in the African conception of humankind. What is discouraged is the view that the individual should take precedence over the community" (Teffo 1996:103). Perhaps we could think of this as constituting a continuum with the practically untenable, but theoretically im-portant, extreme positions of total individualism and complete immersion in the mass at the ends. All human beings would then be positioned somewhere in-between. Gyekye (1987:31) de-scribes the situation as follows:

That the African social order was communal is perhaps undeniable. Nevertheless, I think it would be more correct to describe that order as amphibious, for it manifests features of both communality and individuality. To describe that order simply as communal is to prejudge the issue regarding the place given to individuality in African social thought and practice.

It is of course dangerous to generalise on the population of an entire content or a whole civilisation. Those who insist that all westerners are rugged individualists have yet to explain the leg-endary cohesion of the Italian family! But let us, for the sake of argument, accept that Africans, on average, do attach greater importance to their membership of a social group than westerners.
In Southern Africa, the popular expression of African communalism is ubuntu, from the Zulu proverb ,umuntu ngumuntu ngabanye meaning "a person is a person because of other per-sons". The Sotho equivalent of the term is botho. The term ubuntu was included in the "postamble" to the 1993 "interim" constitution of South Africa, where it reads:

(the) transgression of humanitarian principles in violent conflicts and a legacy of hatred, fear, guilt and revenge ... can now be addressed on the basis that there is a need for understand-ing but not for vengeance, a need for reparation but not for retaliation, a need for ubuntu but not for victimisation".

The term did not survive into the 1996 constitution. In recent years, much attention has been given by the business community to how ubuntu can be used to create an indigenously African management strategy. There has also been some attention from the legal fraternity , and attention to its possible application in politics, education and public administration, yet so far surprisingly little from philosophers and from the side of organised religion. Surprisingly, because inspection of the proverb shows that, far from being merely an expression of social solidarity, it contains metaphysical implications. If we are to construct a complete worldview from this proverb, as some claim able to do, then it demonstrates certain presuppositions about the universe and our ex-istence within it.
And these presuppositions are surprisingly close to certain Buddhist ones: they include a view of the world as being primarily a web of relationships, not a monadic universe of distinct indi-vidual objects. If I exist because of you, equally you exist because of me. Let us try a little thought experiment: If we were to ask people from a variety of religious and philosophical back-grounds to complete the sentence "People are people because of ...", what might be the range of answers?

Materialist: "people are people because of chance mutations and material conditions"
Theist: "people are people because of God's act of creation"
Buddhist: "people are people because of the mutual interpenetration of all phenomena, sentient beings included"

The above is of course a vast oversimplification: each of the three trends of thought could produce a dozen alternative endings to the sentence. But the sentence endings given here are not implausible ones, and they do indicate a certain nearness of Buddhist to African thinking. From a Buddhist point of view, ubuntu points towards an understanding of non-duality, of intercon-nectedness and anatta. Of course, one possible Buddhist critique might be that ubuntu is yet limited in its understanding, since it restricts its analysis to people only. But we can then ask: who are these people? And it will become clear that they do not include only living persons but also the ancestors, who are regarded as full members of the community for as long as they are re-membered by the living. The ancestors are closer than we are to God the creator and his act of creation than we are. And so the ubuntu is not merely an expression of social solidarity. It is that, but it also expresses a mystical connection with unseen beings and, indirectly, a connection with the all-that-is.
In recent years, ubuntu has become somewhat of a bandwagon, and already dissenting voices have sprung up. There are many questions we could ask. Can one really deduce an entire phi-losophy from a single proverb, even if that proverb appears with minor variations in a number of related languages? Is ubuntu really the working philosophy of millions of people? And how unique is it anyway? Proponents of ubuntu freely admit that it is not unique, that it is the African equivalent of statements of interconnectedness and solidarity in other world-views:

Ubuntu is both a particularistic African concept and a universal concept found in other humanistic philosophies and religions such as Christianity. The British humanist philosopher, Jeremy Bentham, wrote extensively about it. His slogan was "The greatest good for the greatest number". This captures the essence of ubuntu. It is a positive aspect of African person-hood (Mbigi & Maree 1995:40).

My contention is that Buddhism, especially in its Mahayana form, is in some respects closer to ubuntu than, say, Christianity. Like Buddhism, ubuntu does not require a theistic element to make it work. People are people because of other people - people are dependent and interdependent on each other - these insights remain equally true with or without mentioning deities. Or, for that matter, Buddhas.
The implication of this for Buddhism in Africa is that, if we wish to reach the people of Africa, some changes will have to be made to what is taught. Buddhism has a vast body of literature, and it would be wise to pick from these those texts that stress respect for the elderly, generational continuity, the need to respect all people and the importance of consultation, accommodation and group consensus in decision-making. The Buddhist philosophy of radically interdependent conditionality that lies at the heart of Buddhism will have to be rephrased in African terms. Such a selective approach is hardly new: western Buddhism is already generating an impressive literature of its own, and it is clear on even a brief scan of this corpus that certain aspects of tradi-tional Buddhism, such as the importance of generosity, monastic hierarchy, and an attitude of worship and veneration, are being quietly sidelined, while other aspects, like meditation for the laity, are receiving an amount of attention that they rarely received in Asia. Here and there, one can even see evidence of this western development filtering back into the Asian heartland.
There can be no prima facie reason why a similar process could not occur in Africa. However, those who present Africa with the rich treasury of Buddhist philosophy would have to be careful to present the full range of Buddhism, not merely a version that has already gone through such a selection process. Only then would Africans be able to create a Buddhism that would be both truly Buddhist and truly African. In a sense, this is what is happening, not necessarily in the sense of a single person teaching all aspects of Buddhism, unless we count this to be the func-tion of the universities, but in the presence, at least in South Africa, of a representative variety of Buddhist schools.
If this were to happen, we may speculate at this point, based on what we have seen above, that the passage of time would see the growth of a new, indigenously African Buddhism that would stress respect for generational continuity, that would generate a new understanding of anatta/sunyata undergirded by the pre-existing concept of ubuntu, in which the concept of the an-cestors would be assimilated and interpreted just as in, say, Tibet, existing deities were recast as spirit-protectors of the dharma. In a way, then, western Buddhism and African Buddhism may end up as mirror-images of each other, the former taking on certain characteristics of Christianity and the agnostic/¬humanistic ethos that is Christianity's unwilling foster-child, and the latter evolving into a community-based faith that celebrates the continuity of all life. In east Asia, two such mirror-images, Zen and Pure Land Buddhism, have long learned to live together, even learned from one another. It is to be hoped that on a global level, western and African Buddhism can do the same.
If Buddhism could tolerate the continued existence of belief in various deities and spirits, if it could learn to co-exist with fully developed religio-philosophical traditions such as Taoism, Confucianism and Shinto, if today it can enter into philosophical dialogue with Christianity and Judaism, then it should be possible to find a Buddhist response to the challenge posed by African belief in the ancestors. I will here only speculate briefly on one possible way that this might be done.
In African religious thought, we may recall, the concept of reincarnation is not completely unknown, and ancestors are thought to remain actively involved for as long as they are remem-bered and revered by their descendants. Similarly, in Buddhist mythology the various realms of existence are not separated by impenetrable walls. We read of the Buddha and other enlightened beings communicating with gods and spirits, even ascending into the heavenly realms to do so. From the Buddhist point of view, therefore, one could see the ancestors as residing in a blissful state of existence and kept there by the transmission of karma by their descendants as long as they are remembered and propitiated. In such a position, they would be able to influence the lives of their descendants (and other people) just as the Indian devas were thought to be able to do, yet when their karma (and the further karma transmitted ritually by their descendants) was ex-hausted, they would be reincarnated in accordance with Buddhist teachings. Such a scheme, no doubt more fully developed than I am able to do here, would encapsulate African beliefs within a Buddhist framework in a way that would do justice to both. But that would be looking at the problem from the Buddhist angle. Whether it would be emotionally, spiritually, religiously accepta-ble to Africa remains to be seen
And of course, since this is speculation, things may turn out very differently. It is not for me, a European-born scholar, to prescribe to Africans what kind of Buddhism to adopt, or whether to adopt it at all. If there is to be an African Buddhism, factors undetected by me may shape it into something very different. But I doubt that they will. And I envy scholars of the future, who will know the answer.

Notes


References

Bernal, M 1987. Black Athena. Vol I: The fabrication of ancient Greece 1785-1985.London: Free Association Books.

Carruthers, JH 1995. MDW NTR: Divine speech. London: Karnak House.

Clasquin, M 1992. Early Buddhist interpersonal ethics a study of the Singalovada Suttanta and its contemporary relevance. MA dissertation. Pretoria: University of South Africa.

Diop, CA 1959. The cultural unity of black Africa. Chicago: Third World press. (Original French title: L'Unité culturelle de l'Afrique noire.)

Horner, IB (trl) 1976. The collection of middle-length sayings (Majjhimanikaya). Vol II. London: Pali Text Society.

Gyekye, K 1987. The unexamined life: philosophy and the African experience. Accra: Ghana Universities press.

Kamalu, C 1990. Foundations of African thought. London: Karnak House.

Mbigi, L 1997. Ubuntu. The African dream in management. Randburg: Knowledge resources.

Mbigi, L & Maree, J 1995. Solidarity and conformity: a guide to high performance. People dynamics. vol 13, pp 40-44.

Mbiti, JS 1969. African religions and philosophy. London: Heinemann.

Nicholson, T (trl.) [sa]. The Buddha speaks the sutra about the deep kindness of parents and the difficulty of repaying it (Filial piety sutra). Singapore: Kowah Printing and Publishing.

Olela,H 1977. The African foundations of Greek philosophy. In Wright, R.A. 1977. African philosophy: an introduction. Washington DC: University press of America, pp. 63-82.

Teffo, LJ 1996. The other in African experience. South African journal of philosophy. vol 15, no 3, August 1996, pp 101-104.

Wiredu, J.E. 1977. How not to compare African thought with western thought. In Wright, R.A. 1977. African philosophy: an introduction. Washington DC: University Press of America, pp. 166-184.
Wiredu, K. 1992. Death and the Afterlife in African culture. In Wiredu, K & Gyekye, K. 1992. Person and Community. Ghanaian philosophical studies, I. Washington DC: The council for research in values and philosophy. pp. 137-152.

 
Discussion


Question: Is there any concept in African religion that equates to the Buddhist idea of Nirvana?

Clasquin: I'm closely following Mbiti in my work on African religion, although I'm aware that he is no longer popular among some experts. He divides the afterlife into personal and impersonal immortality. The latter is the closest I've seen African religion come to the idea of nirvana. It really is too much to expect that in two religio-philosophical struc-tures this far apart, we would encounter exactly the same concept. My work is more modest: all I am trying to find is areas that are not too far apart, so that at least we can start talking the same language.

Comment: It is unfortunate that the study of African Religion was started by Christian theologians. This has led to the belief that African Religion is still in its infancy and that it will eventually lead to evangelical theology. It is seen as something that must still evolve into a bigger better Christian movement. Mbiti was one such, in my opinion. There is no belief among African people in an afterlife in heaven or hell. In African thought we hold that we are judged here, by our society, right here and now. If you do good work you are rewarded for that.

Clasquin: I think I did mention that the ancestors are part of the community. They are not "somewhere else".

Comment: Yes, the ancestors are the "living dead" who are part of us. They are part of the estate. They are not in an "afterlife". Those contemporary Africans who do profess belief in an afterlife are actually trying to get to grips with Christianity.
 
POSTSCRIPT


 
At the end of the conference, it was decided to set up a steering committee that would look into the possibility of setting up a loosely organised organisation that would be able to speak for all South African Buddhists, especially in dealings with the media and with government institutions. The following people were nominated

Michel Clasquin (convener)
Ven Dhammarakkhita
Heila Downey
Kittisaro
Kobus Krüger
Hugh Laue
Alison Smith

At the time of writing, the committee had not yet been convened.. Since the committee members live all over the country, the intention is to set up an email link between them and get the debate going that way.
 
 
SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY South African works on Buddhism


 
Books

Krüger, J S 1988. Aandag, kalmte en insig : 'n uiteensetting van Theravada Boeddhistiese meditasie aan die hand van die Maha Satipatthana Sutta. Pretoria: Unisa

Krüger, J S 1989. Metatheism: Early Buddhism and traditional Christian Theism. Pretoria: Unisa.

Krüger, J S 1991. Buddhism from the Buddha to Asoka. Pretoria: Unisa.

Krüger, J S 1995. Along Edges. Religion in South Africa : Bushman, Christian, Buddhist. Pretoria: Unisa

Nairn, R 1993. Tranquil mind : an introduction to Buddhism and meditation. Cape Town: Carefour & Dragon. Also available in Afrikaans under the title Die stil gemoed.

Van Loon, M 1989. The Molly van Loon collection of Buddhist art. Pretoria: Unisa Art Gallery


Theses and dissertations


Abrahams, J P 1987. Infinite possibility as a key expectation in Descartes and Buddhism. MA (Philosophy), University of the Western Cape.

Clasquin, M 1993. Early Buddhist interpersonal ethics: the case of the Singalovada Suttanta. MA (Religious Studies), University of South Africa.

 
Dimitriu, I 1993. Reconstructing the hostile space: a Zen Buddhist and psychological reading of Breyten Breytenbach's "The true confession of an albino terrorist". MA (English), University of Natal (Durban).

Du Preez, G C 1992. Oosterse denkstrukture: Madhyamika Boeddhisme in verhou¬ding tot tradisies en tendense in Oosterse en Westerse filosofie. MA (Philosophy), University of the Orange Free State.

Ferreira, J 1988. Aspekte van die Judaïes Christelike en die Boeddhistiese in die poësie van Breyten Breytenbach. PhD (Afrikaans/Nederlands), Rhodes University.

Leatt, A-M J 1995. Intrinsic patterns in the history of religious change from early Hindu traditions to contemporary Mahayana Buddhism: an application of Cumpsty's Theory of Religion. MSocSc (Religious Studies), University of Cape Town.

McLeod, B R 1991. A Buddhist reading of T S . Eliot's Four Quartets. MA (English), University of Durban Westville.

Potgieter, I C 1979. 'n Teologies kritiese oorsig oor die verhouding tussen Zen Boeddh¬isme en die Oosterse selfverdedigingskunste. MTh (Missiology), University of Stellenbosch.

Ravgee, C L 1997. Contemporary experiences of the Buddhist meditation practice: a case study approach. MA (Psychology), Rhodes University.

Steyn, H C 1988. Thomas Merton en Theravada Boeddhisme: 'n vergelykende studie van religieuse ervaring. MA (Religious Studies), University of South Africa.

Wilson, A P 1994.Verby subjek en objek: die psigologiese soteriologie van Vasuban¬dhu, die Yogacarin, in die konteks van die Boeddhistiese leerontwikkeling in Indië. MA (Religious Studies), University of South Africa.

Wratten, D 1995. Buddhism in South Africa: from textual imagination to contextual innovation. PhD (Religious Studies), University of Cape Town.


Contributions to collective works


Clasquin, M 1992. Buddhism and Unemployment a conceptual reappraisal of social classification systems. In Vorster, W. S. (ed.) 1992. On being unemployed and religious. Pretoria: Unisa. pp 96 106.

Clasquin, M 1993. Myth in an antimythical environment; the case of Buddhism. in Clasquin, M, Ferreira, J, Marais, D & Sadowsky, R. (eds) 1993. Myth and Interdisciplinary Research. Pretoria: Unisa, pp 66 81.

Clasquin, M 1994. Buddhist ethics and the South African situation. In De Gruchy, J W & Martin, S B (eds) 1995. Religion and Civil Society. Papers from the founding congress of the South African Academy of Religion, January 1994. Pretoria: University of South Africa

Krüger, J S 1997. Section 4: Buddhism. In Kruger, J S, Lubbe, G J A & Steyn, H C 1997. The human search for meaning. Pretoria: Via Afrika.

Oosthuizen, G C 1993. The place and role of India's religions in Africa. In: Religious plurality in Africa; ed by J Olupona, and others.

Song, A 1995. Chinese religion in South Africa. In Prozesky, M & De Gruchy, J W (eds) 1995. Living faiths in South Africa. New York: St Martin's Press.

Van Loon, L H 1978. Why the Buddha did not preach to a hungry man: a Buddhist view. In Nurnberger, K (ed) 1978. Affluence, poverty and the word of God. Durban: Lutheran Publishing House.

Van Loon, L H 1995.Buddhism in South Africa. In Prozesky, M & De Gruchy, J W (eds) 1995. Living faiths in South Africa. New York: St Martin's Press.


Academic articles


Campbell, J M 1993. Beyond Duality: A Buddhist Reading of Bessie Head's "A Question of Power". Journal of Commonwealth Literature 28/1, pp 64 81

Clasquin, M 1989. Paradoxical intention and Zen: new light on an old technique? Journal for the Study of Religion. 2/2. (Sept 1989) pp 49 57.

Clasquin, M 1992. Why study Buddhism? Theologia Evangelica. 25/2. (Jun 1992) pp 58 63.

Clasquin, M 1993. Buddhism and human rights. Journal for the Study of Religion. 6/2. (Sept 1993) pp 91 101.

Clasquin, M 1994. Religion, ethics and communal interaction in the new South Africa the case of the Declaration on Religious Rights and Responsibilities. Mission¬alia. 22/1. (April 1994) pp 13 35.

Clasquin, M 1995. Demythologisation in Axial Age India The Singalovada Suttanta. Myth and Symbol. vol 2. (1995) pp 19-38.

Clasquin, M 1995. Buddhist Scriptures for non-Buddhists; The Pali Canon - an overview. Religion & Theology 2/2. pp 179-190.

Clasquin, M 1997. Buddhism, science and other worldviews. Scriptura vol 61 (1997) pp 139-150.

Chidester, D 1987. Christians, Buddhists, Muslims and others. Journal of theology for Southern Africa, no 60:81 86, Sep, 1987

Krüger, J S 1988. Buddhist hermeneutics: the case of the Tevijja Sutta. Journal for the study of religion 1/1, pp 55 62.

Krüger, J S 1992. "Die wortel van alle dinge": Die vroeg Boeddhistiese siening van die bestand van die werklikheid aan die hand van die "Mulapariyaya sutta".Theol¬ogia evangelica; 25/2, pp 64 76
Krüger, J S 1994. "Enkelwees": 'n vroeë Boeddhistiese gedig. Religion and theology 1/1, pp18 26

Mason, G 1996. The impact of Mitra and Varuna on the development of Sunyata in Buddhism. Nidan, no 8:34 47.

McLeod, B R 1992. Buddhism, T S Eliot and the four Quartets. Journal for the study of religion 5/1, pp 3 16.

Potter, A 1989. What do you think of these Buddhas?: the function of the Buddha in Harold Pinter's "The caretaker". South African theatre journal 3/2, pp 19 32

Prozesky, M & Edwards, F 1986. Beyond dialogue: towards a mutual transformation of Christianity and Buddhism: two perspectives. Journal of theology for southern Africa no 56:67 73

Sienaert, M 1993. Zen Boeddhistiese selfloosheid as sentrale interteks van die Breytenbach oeuvre. Literator 14/1, pp 25 45.

Steyn, H C 1990. The influence of Buddhism on Thomas Merton. Journal for the study of religion 3/2, pp 3 14.

Van Loon, L H 1980.The Indian Buddhist community in South Africa: its historical origins and socio religious attitudes and practices. Religion in southern Africa. 1/1, pp:3 18.

Van Loon, L H 1983. Some Buddhist reflections on suicide. Religion in southern Africa . 4/1,pp 3 12


Articles in the popular press


Anonymous, 1993. No man's land: A letter from South Africa. Tricycle: the Buddhist review. 14/4 pp 64-69.

Donaldson, A 1996. Buddhism in Africa. Style, June 1996, pp 80 87.
Hennig, W. 1994. Zen and the art of sheep farming. Sunday Times magazine March 6 1994,p 14.

Maluleke, J 1996. Black Buddhists of Bronkhorstspruit. Drum nr 215 (Oct 17 1996), pp 96 97.

Mathe, S 1996. Africa's school for monks. Pace, February 1996 pp 28 30.

Nash, J 1990. Tip of the tiger's tail: Buddhism in South Africa. Middle Way 65 (May), pp 35 39.

Orchard, M 1995. The precious one. Leadership SA 14/2, pp 70 83.

Parsons, M 1992. Buddhist Retreat Centre: place of quiet. Prisma 7/6, pp 6 7.

Van Loon, L H 1990. Mense is edel en waardig, sê die Boeddhis. Vrye Weekblad, 12 October 1990, pp 18-19.


 
INDEX
 


 
academic study of Buddhism, 6
accounts of early African Buddhism, 2, 15
African religion, 5, 14, 41, 85 87, 89 91, 113, 116, 117, 123
African renaissance, 2
African thought, 5, 90, 111 113, 116, 117, 122, 123
Allen, 75
alterity, 95 99, 103, 105
ancestors, 3, 22, 87, 113, 114, 119, 120, 123
art, iv, 4, 10, 40, 45, 46, 52, 103, 108
Asanga, 68, 70
Ashoka, 31, 35
atheism, 19
Australia, 1, 9, 57, 64
black Buddha, 21
bowing and prostration, 106
Buddhism in public education, 8
Buddhist Institute of South Africa, 31, 34
Buddhist Retreat Centre, 34, 40
Burma, 59
Cape Town, 2, 13, 27 30, 43, 53, 55, 62, 72 74, 77, 83, 84
Catholicism, 18, 65
celibacy, 114
census figures of SA Buddhists, 3, 13, 40
China, 2, 4, 5, 14, 15, 20, 21, 23, 26, 27, 29, 33, 39, 47, 49, 58, 59, 62, 63, 95, 97, 98, 100 103, 106, 116
Christianity, 3, 5, 11, 15, 19, 20, 23, 24, 26, 29, 43, 58, 65, 86 89, 93, 96, 111, 116, 117, 119, 120
communalism, 117
compassion, 11, 32, 38, 69, 70, 72, 74, 82, 100
Confucianism, 120
conscientious objection, 13
creator God, 33, 43
Credo Mutwa, 75
Cula-Malunkyasutta, 116
cultural spectrum of South Africa, 2
Deutsche Buddhistische Union, 9
Dhammodaya Myanmar Vihara, 35
dharmakaya, 71, 113
Diamond Sutra, 47
Durban, iv, 30, 37, 38, 45, 62, 73
Egypt, 2, 21, 60, 112
enlightenment, 22, 32, 38, 47 50, 71, 74, 100, 116
Federation of Buddhist Councils of Aus¬tralia, 9
Filial Piety Sutra, 114
Fo Kuang Shan, 7, 8, 35, 38, 39, 41, 55, 64, 83
government persecution of Buddhism, 42
groups
function, 78
size, 78
Harare, 74, 75
Hartman, David, 13
Harvard University, 1
Heart Sutra, 51
Hinayana, 32, 68, 70
Hinduism, 3, 34, 35, 43, 113
Hua-yen Buddhism, 113
Independent Churches, 41
India, 4, 6, 9, 20, 21, 27, 28, 35 38, 68, 69, 72, 73, 103
individualism, 117
Islam, 3, 43, 86, 111, 116, 117
Ixopo, 13, 34, 40, 53, 77
Japan, 4, 5, 14, 23, 28, 33, 39, 49, 59, 63
Johannesburg, 28, 29, 73, 74, 86
Kagyu Afrika, 67
Kagyu Centres in SA , 74
Kagyu order of Tibetan Buddhism , 68
Karma Rigdol, 73
Korea, 4, 49, 50, 63
life expectancy of Buddhist groups, 78
Mahayana, 9, 17, 32, 68, 70, 71, 93, 99, 113, 114, 119
major traditions of Tibetan Buddhism, 68
meditation, 8, 10, 13, 32, 40, 42, 48, 49, 59, 69 74, 78, 79, 83, 100, 101, 120
mimesis, 95, 103, 105
monotheism, 19, 113
Myanmar, 35, 39
Nagarjuna, 68
Nichiren Shoshu, 40
Nieu Bethesda, 73, 74
nirmanakaya, 71
nirvana, 14, 22, 23, 30, 116, 123
Overport Buddhist Sakya Society, 13
Pali, 7, 17, 24, 115, 122
pantheism, 19, 113
Platform Sutra, 103
Poep Kwang Sa, 45
polytheism, 19, 113
Pretoria, 14, 26, 27, 29, 77, 83, 86, 121
Pure Land Buddhism, 38
reincarnation, 69, 113, 120
religious composition of South Africa, 3
Robertson, 13, 53, 54, 84
Rosebank Buddhist group, 77, 78, 81
SA - Buddhism (black), 41, 75
SA - Buddhism (Indian), 35
SA - Buddhism (other Asiatic), 37
SA - Buddhism (white), 40, 72
Samadhirajasutra, 69
samboghyakaya, 71, 113
Samye Dzong Johannesburg, 74
Samye Ling, 72
Sanskrit, 7, 16, 17, 24
shipwreck, 26, 30
Singalovada Suttanta, 115
Somerset West, 54
Spiritualists, 15
Sri Lanka, 4, 14, 21, 23, 59
Taiwan, 35, 38, 39, 55 58, 60, 62, 63, 65, 83
Taoism, 113, 120
Thailand, 13, 14, 23, 59
theism, 19, 89
Theosophical Society, 75
Theosophists, 15, 23
Theravada, 9, 10, 13, 17, 40, 53, 78
Tibet, 2, 4, 5, 23, 26, 28, 33, 67 70, 72, 75, 76, 120
Tibetan Friendship Group, 73
training of monks and nuns, 7
ubuntu, 42, 87, 111, 117 120, 122
Unitarians, 15, 23
Vajrayana, 34, 40, 41, 68, 70 72
Vimalakirti-sutra, 100
visual familiarity as indicator of in¬digenisation, 102
western Buddhism, 33, 119
Australia, 9
Germany, 9
United States, 95
wisdom, 70, 82, 100, 111, 112
Zaire, 39
Zen, 13, 14, 29, 34, 40, 45 53, 75, 98, 99, 105, 120
Zimbabwe, 75

Buddha-rpa at the Buddhist Retreat Centre, Ixopo

Zen Garden at the Buddhist Retreat Centre, Ixopo

Stupa at the Buddhist Retreat Centre, Ixopo

Heila and Rodney Downey of the Poep Kwang Sa centre in Robertson.

Participants at the first Kyol Ché (one month intensive retreat) in South Africa, November 1996. With Jane McLaughlin PSN and Heila Downey PSN,Poep Kwang Sa,Robertson.


Guest house, Nan Hua temple, Bronkhorstspruit
 
1998 conference on Buddhism and Africa, Unisa: Paul Bahlsen and Kobus Krüger.

1998 conference on Buddhism and Africa, Unisa: Kevin Snyman, Heila Downey and Kittisaro.


Source