(Lobsang Jivaka, aka, Cyril Hoskin, aka, New Age Gangster, aka, fake Tibetan lama)
Preambling on
I am adding a couple of thoughts here before starting a short cycle of blog posts in the next few weeks. This is because the audience at this site has increased markedly over the last year which makes it necessary for me to be clearer in my intentions and more explicit with my basic assumptions, which is an ongoing challenge for us all. The textual form still lends itself to certain instinctual interpretations on the part of the reader; one being that what is written is a final declaration on the part of the writer. Another is that the views within are fixed in stone or not open to change. Neither of these assumptions would be true in my case. It is for this reason that I always invite readers to chime in.
I will be applying a post-traditional reading to meditation in the next two blog posts. I am mainly interested in meditation practices that come from Tibet and they act as the basis for the questions I ask of meditation and the direction I will take in my exploration and elaboration of contemporary reformulations and interpretations. Because of the way I intend to do so, it is worth me spending a few words on ownership, and cultural appropriation. I won’t say a great deal but would like to anticipate some potential concerns from the more scholarly leaning readers. The issues of exploitation and cultural theft and their relationship with the steam rolling driving Capitalism and its need to profit from literally every aspect of human activity makes issues of ownership and identity a delicate issue and this applies to Western engagements with Buddhism.
Shamanism and Buddhism share history bro
Historically speaking, there are very strong parallels between western interest in Shamanism and Buddhism. The history of modern interest in Buddhism laid out in books such as David McMahan’s The Makings of Buddhist Modernism or Donald S. Lopez’s Prisoners of Shangri-La are mirrored in an historical analysis of Western interest in Shamanism, and Native American spirituality and religion, in Andrei A. Znamenski’s wonderful The Beauty of the Primitive. I highly recommend all three books if you have any personal connection to these traditions, especially the latter two which are highly readable. The role of romanticism, anti-modern sentiments and a desire for a long-lost past united initial fascination with both of these exotic traditions and are at the base of the often dysfunctional relationship that has characterised white Westerners’ engagement with them ever since. I am all too aware that many folks still fall for the romantic narratives exposed in all three texts and traces of these narratives still linger on in the imagination of many Western followers of Buddhism. The relationship with what were once exotic and foreign religions is obviously going to be rather complex and as with many politically charged topics, it is very easy for those enchanted by them to drift towards one side of the ownership debate and judge accordingly. In part, divisions and judgements over what is perceived of as theft or cultural appropriation, and the free exploration of knowledge and adoption of profound spiritual truth (which are believed should be freely available to all) have been stimulated by the mixing of religion and spirituality with money making. This has been compounded by unscrupulous folks posing as something they are not with titles such as Tulku, Rinpoche, Lama, and Guru being adopted by those who have no claim to them. Check out the story of Lobsang Rampa, otherwise known as Cyril Hoskin, for insight into a very British case of false identity, delusion and money making. He wrote what is apparently still the bestselling book on Tibetan Buddhism in the West: the absurdly fantastical The Third Eye.
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