Buddhist Studies - Relationship To Contemporary Buddhism

Relationship To Contemporary Buddhism

Charles Prebish, a scholar-practitioner and Chair of Religious Studies at Utah State University, describes the academics who are also Buddhist practitioner as fulfilling a crucial traditional role that has gone otherwise unfilled in countries that are not traditionally Buddhist:

Throughout much of Buddhism’s history, Buddhist scholarship and practice have been two very distinct vocations in a highly polarized tradition. Not surprisingly, stories reflecting the study/practice dichotomy in Buddhism are abundant in both the primary and secondary literature on the subject. Walpola Rahula’s History of Buddhism in Ceylon provides a good summary of the issue. During the first century B.C.E., in response to a concern over the possible loss of the Tripitaka during a severe famine, a question arose: What is the basis of the Teaching (sasana)—learning or practice? A clear difference of opinion resulted in the development of two groups: the Dhammakathikas, who claimed that learning was the basis of the Sasana, and the Pamsukulikas, who argued for practice as the basis. The Dhammakathikas apparently won out.

The two vocations described above came to be known as gantha-dhura, or the “vocation of books,” and vipassana-dhura, or the “vocation of meditation,” with the former regarded as the superior training (because surely meditation would not be possible if the teachings were lost). Moreover, the vipassana-dhura monks began to live in the forest, where they could best pursue their vocation undisturbed, while the gantha-dhura monks began to dwell in villages and towns. As such, the gantha-dhura monks began to play a significant role in Buddhist education.

It would probably not be going too far to refer to the gantha-dhura monks as “scholar-monks.” Why is this distinction so important? It is significant because the scholar-monks were responsible for the education of the laity and cultivated a Buddhist literacy among the ordinary practitioners of the tradition. While this was a normative practice in the ancient Buddhist tradition, Buddhism in the Western world has not favored a monastic lifestyle. As such, the education of the laity has been left to teachers who are no longer trained as scholar-monks. In fact, while many of the leaders and authorized teachers in the various Western Buddhist groups have had formal monastic and scholarly training at some point, many—if not most—have abandoned the monastic and scholarly lifestyle altogether. This has fostered a “scholarship gap,” which to a large extent is being rapidly filled by scholar-practitioners who, although not living as full-fledged monastics, have solid scholarly and academic training grounded in a rigorous personal practice.