Customer Reviews

Buddha and the Gospel of Buddhism (Library of the Mystic Arts)

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I happened upon Coomeraswamy while reading a review of a book on Zen Buddhism. Coomeraswamy was described as being a more "legitimate" source of learning about Buddhism than the author of the book I was reading about.

I am just about finished with Buddha and the Gospel of Buddhism, and I am delighted to have read it. Coomeraswamy is a rock-solid historian and has an intuitive knowledge of Indian and ancient Indian culture, despite not being from India. His sources and references are unrivaled in anything I have read, and he has the openness characteristic of great spiritual writers such as D.T. Suzuki, Thomas Merton, Meister Ekhart, and even Aldous Huxley in his later years. There is so much awesome information and so many penetrating insights in this book that you literally read it in awe, never working to get through a section so you can move on, never looking forward to your next book. This is a must read for those interested in Buddhism, and it is amongst the most valuable books I have read on the topic, for the historical and cultural scholarship.

My reason for giving it three stars instead of five is that as historically and culturally sound as Coomeraswamy's scholarship is, he comes up short spiritually. Coomeraswamy is a perrenialist, one of the founders of the perrenial philosophy, a concept formed in the early 20th century that is somewhat akin to the philosophies and values held by a Universalist church. The perrenialists are also akin to mystics in that they believe in a foundation of reality that can be experienced. It matters less how a person gets to that foundation, and more that a person finds a way to do it. In a sense, they are the mixed-martial artists of the spiritual world. They do not adhere to one style, but find value in each and are most successful when incorporating the best qualitiues of each disicpline. This is to be commended, certainly, because they have their "way." However, it effectively shuns people who adhere to one way.

I also found Coomeraswamy's arguments deficient in his passages that compared Buddhism and its Brahman roots. Coomeraswamy insists on elaborating on whether or not buddhism offers anything unique or new to the human ken of understanding. He boils the Buddha's teachings down to focusing more the process of becoming than its Brahman roots, but also states that Buddha essentially realized what the greatest brahman thinkers realized. The point is clear, and is a perrenialist's view through and through, but it is not the most crucial aspect on which to focus. The Buddha admitted that his teachings were not new. He simply introduced a new way to reach nibbana, and effectively stripped away the myths and a lot of the "extras" people had grown accustomed to in his time. He focused on the moon, not the finger pointing to the moon. Coomeraswamy doesn't seem to care about this essential idea in Buddhism, and is more interested at points in proving how Buddhism, while an interesting historical and cultural development, is just another spiritual offering. He even goes so far as to say that Buddha emphasized the importance of his teaching because Buddha was ignorant of the highest truths realized by the ancient Brahmans. Again, there may be some truth in that conclusion, but Coomeraswamy misses the point. Buddhism is too legitimate to be reduced to a misconception. It has led too many people to the greatest spiritual insights to be a mistake.

We cannot fault Coomeraswamy for his beliefs, certainly, and he does a great job of getting to the heart of how Buddhism developed. It's just that we can only trust him up to a point, the same way we can only trust a western atheist to a certain point. If the heart is missing, all spiritual paths are null and void. The only way we can really learn from a person who chooses to write about a spiritual discipline is if that person has experienced significant spiritual insights. I'm not sure Coomeraswamy has done so. One look at his personal life reveals a man who struggled emotionally and with personal relationships. He had human problems for sure, but it also tempers our ability to trust the sincerity of some of his spiritual progress, and hence the validity of anything he has to say about spirituality in general. We can trust him primarily as a historian and, basically, as a cultural scholar.

I have a sentimental attachment to this book, having read it in the wake an acid trip many years ago, and realizing as I did that there was more to what we call "spiritual" than what I'd formerly experienced (and dismissed) as religion.

I doubt whether that was the author's intent, given the number of other books he's authored on this and similar subjects, and that he is a respected scholar in the field. But his book had that effect on me, discussing, as it did, real issues of concern to a human being seeking practical answers to basic things. Years later, rereading it, the words did not pop off the page as they did that long ago psychedelic morning, but Coomaraswamy's descriptions were still as lucid and welcome. I Think, Therefore Who Am I?