The Buddhist Roots of Secular Compassion Training
The Buddhist Roots of Secular Compassion Training
A Comparative Study of Compassion Cultivation in Indian and Tibetan Mahāyāna Sources with the Contemporary Secular Program of Compassion Cultivation Training (CCT)
Julia Caroline Stenzel
School of Religious Studies, McGill University, Montreal
October 2018
A thesis submitted to McGill University in partial fulfillment of the requirements of the degree of Doctor of Philosophy
Abstract
This dissertation is a comparative analysis of compassion cultivation in Indo-Tibetan Mahāyāna Buddhist contexts and the recent phenomenon of secular, Buddhism-derived compassion training in North America, exemplified by one of the most prominent programs to date, the Compassion Cultivation Training (CCT) developed at Stanford University.
This dissertation makes a contribution to the little-studied field of Buddhist compassion cultivation by tracing the transformations of important key concepts throughout Indian and Tibetan Buddhist intellectual history, highlighting the ways in which these transformational processes have enabled the contemporary secularization of compassion training. The study also clarifies conceptual discrepancies between traditional Buddhist and secular approaches to compassion training, particularly focusing on the compassion culture in which the respective training methods are embedded. The study thereby raises awareness of the scope and limitations of the secularization of Buddhist contemplative practices.
The critical comparative analysis is based on textual interpretation of relevant texts from various genres, such as Indian Mahāyāna sūtra, Abhidharma, Tathāgatagarbha, Yogācāra and Madhyamaka śāstra, Tibetan commentarial texts and practice manuals of the Lojong (blo sbyong) and Lamrim (lam rim) traditions, as well as recent scientific studies of mindfulness and compassion. The choice of textual material is determined by its relevance for the evolution of compassion cultivation, culminating in its secularization in contemporary North America.
The study begins with a broad overview of etymologies, definitions and ideas pertaining to compassion in canonical Mahāyāna literature, which are contrasted with definitions drawn from contemporary secular compassion science literature, thereby setting the stage for a comparative analysis. Then I discuss compassion didactics in sūtra and śāstra literature and propose a systematization of three didactic approaches, namely, constructive, deconstructive and cognitive-analytic. I argue that these three didactic styles must be understood as embedded in a contextual framework, a “compassion culture.”
The study then focuses on the specific method of tonglen, which is the formal contemplative method in both, Tibetan Lojong and secular CCT. I trace its philosophical roots to the principle of “equalizing and exchange of self and other” (Skt. svaparasamatā parātmaparivartana, Tib. bdag gzhan mnyams brje), which has been extensively developed by the seventh-century Indian master Śāntideva in his Bodhi(sattva)caryāvatāra. The analysis of various Tibetan interpretations thereof shows how this meditation was progressively transformed and popularized, thereby paving the way for its secularization in CCT. After a detailed presentation of the secular program of CCT, I discuss the complex relationship to its Buddhist roots and conclude with a critique of the recent phenomenon of secularized Buddhist contemplative practice.
