Jack Kornfield

A redditor went pretty hard at Jack Kornfield. His talk on an Oprah interview wasn't orthodox Buddhism. Here is my response (since expanded upon here as I thought more and more about this):

Feels like an Oprah interview is setting him up to be a more than Buddhist teacher and being open to a more Abrahamic background, to widen his audience beyond the 0.7% Buddhist in America. He has been ordained by the marketplace, his books have sold. I've read most of them and his first book is about the various meditation practices he encountered in Thailand, published in 1977, feels like good information. 

Kornfield, strikes me as a good writer. Good writers don't necessarily start movements or make a lot of hay in Buddhism, but I also like Stephen Batchelor. There's a synthesis going on with Buddhism as certain western ideas are being integrated into Buddhism. It feels like some of the negative aspects of Christianity can avoided, and there's a hope in a religion that is going to be more suited for our current times.

There is a syncretism going on in America, and it's hard to imagine the Buddhism that is going to emerge. The lay Theravada tradition, with the lay going for it instead of just trying to make merit, along with their worldly lives, is another example of Americans trying to have it all. 

New movements have always gotten pushback from traditionalists. Time will tell if the American lay tradition of Theravada is going to be a thing (IMS).

I'm not ready to cast Kornfield out for a populist and honest interview with Oprah, but it's good to get information and to see how far a perspective can go. Every country reconstructs Buddhism, and that is OK. I feel like Buddhism is strong enough to be tested by being adopted to a new country in the modern world. Spirituality has always been adapted and adjusted to a culture it enters. Look at the spread of Buddhism in China. Maybe you can't snuff out what Buddhism has to offer, maybe we want something beyond a secular humanism, which can be a glorious spirituality too. If we're allowed to explore and make sense of things, not just swallow doctrines whole, maybe we can sift out an essential Buddhism, or an American Buddhism that works. As the many sects of Buddhism show, there are lots of possibilities. Americans don't take to being told how to be. That is both our strength and downfall. 

The quote "Buddhism is not just whatever some white guy makes up after visiting Thailand and learning meditation" is a bit provocative, but it makes the point that perhaps syncretism needs to have some limits. It's true that if you want a good brand of Buddhism perhaps don't experiment with a new one, but I myself am more flexible and think that new movements don't need to be snuffed out. Of course rigid fundamentalism trying to snuff out other traditions, is also a American tradition as well. I'll be interested to see this dance play out with the remainder of my life.

We need traditionalists who make us aware of our choices. We need innovation and creativity as we adapt to new circumstances, too, that is the essence of mindfulness to me.

My feeling is that the creativity and innovation of Chogyam Trungpa was too wild, not disciplined enough. On the other hand, I don't want to be a monk who can't touch a woman, when it's an elderly relative who could use some support with some stairs. The real question is what really works and are we just adopting something without really changing. The change of moving towards enlightenment can be quite challenging and it's hard to sort out what growing pains and dark nights are necessary, and which ones are not. The push/pull of a lay Theravada movement is utterly fascinating to me.

A vibrant dynamic movement, and intense devotion will look cult like, will be suspect. The sexual misconduct in American Buddhism has been pretty damaging. Mistakes have huge ripples throughout time that are not easy to see. Trying to do things will always invite criticism. We want a solid foundation but nothing is perfect. 

If Buddhism came to America in the 1840's with Chinese immigrants we've had it on this land for 180 years. I think one time I came up with 250 years. Both estimates are minuscule over the history of Buddhism. Buddhism came to China around 67 CE, maybe 150 CE. They've had Buddhism a little longer, though communism has tried to snuff it out. My point is that the newness to a continent and the newness to a culture churning and changing is going to produce some interesting results. Maybe traditionalism is what is needed amongst this churn, but some periods are more open to change. I appreciate the redditor drawing the traditionalist line, but I feel like Kornfield's journey is his own, and his early books provided good information to a culture starving for Buddhist information. There are some Buddhist teachers that adopt some Christian language, I imagine in the hopes that it will help spread Buddhist ideas in a Christian America. I'm turned off by that. And maybe the criticism that adopting a foreign religion doesn't get around the various tricks and boondoggles of religion, but it feels like there's a minimalist essential Buddhism combined with mythological awareness and sophistication, and fear of literalism, can really make a religion for the times we live in, here in America. If it can draw this athiest in, I think anything is possible.

I would also add that I can't buy into lineage ideas being paramount. I respect people who feel that is important, but sorry, too much time has gone by and it's great if you got it, but I don't think that means you can't make a new movement without a lineage. The Buddha created a new movement that wasn't there before. Not that these new people are on his level, but it's possible.