EHESS Conference
Diffusion of Tibetan Buddhism in France.
For the past thirty years, the phenomenon of conversion to Buddhism has no longer been isolated but has involved thousands of individuals. Although the dharma has been present in France for nearly a century through the presence of Vietnamese communities, it was mainly the exile of Tibetans and the establishment of numerous centers run by lamas from the mid-1970s onwards that would promote the spread of Buddhism in France. Relayed by the media coverage of the Dalai Lama, the success of Tibetan Buddhism would somewhat eclipse the equally significant spread of two other Japanese Buddhist movements: the Soka Gakkai, which has around eight thousand members, and Zen, which has around three thousand meditators regularly attending dojos. According to our own estimates, the followers of Tibetan Buddhism socialized in the centers – and therefore identifiable – represent at most ten thousand people. To this figure should be added hundreds of thousands of people who are affected by the media influence of the Dalai Lama and other great witnesses of Tibetan Buddhism. But these sympathizers constitute a population too superficially involved in the dharma to be taken into account in this study on the authority of the spiritual master. We could also have studied this question through the example of Zen masters, which is not without similarities with that of Tibetan lamas. But the limited time of this intervention inclined us to remain focused on Tibetan Buddhism, which affects more French people. 4
The central role of the master in the transmission of the dharma
Why speak of the authority of the "spiritual master" and not the authority of tradition or institution? In the East in general, but also in the West since the East established itself there, the spiritual master is the central figure of religious authority. The notions of institution, tradition, canon, and authorized teaching are also very present – contrary to what some Westerners believe – but they are in the background of a more tangible reality which is the primordial role of the master in the transmission of this traditional teaching. Very schematically, the central idea is that the religious community must above all help, over the centuries, individuals to achieve a liberating personal experience. Since men are locked in ignorance, it is crucial to help them free themselves from the veils that envelop their minds. To do this, it is necessary to study the texts of tradition, to practice certain collective rituals or to have correct ethical conduct – everything that a religious group transmits – but the most important thing remains the work on oneself, the intimate experience that cannot be done without the guidance of a realized master. The master is also as indispensable for learning to meditate and to transform oneself as for correctly understanding the traditional teaching recorded in writing. He is therefore the pivot of spiritual transmission and the true religious authority.
This is not only understood by Westerners, but it is even one of the main reasons for the success of Eastern spiritualities in the West. It is indeed in the current of counterculture, which rejected all forms of bureaucratic institutions and authoritarian magisterium that Westerners turned to the East to find there above all masters of life and wisdom.
We will see, however, how the conception of the authority of the spiritual master was transformed by passing to the West. Let us first consider, from the discourse of the followers, where the Buddhist spiritual master, in this case the Tibetan lama, draws the legitimacy of his authority.
Legitimacy of the Authority of the Tibetan Lama
I rely here mainly on the interviews, but also on some responses from the questionnaire concerning the many followers of Tibetan Buddhism who claim to be connected to a particular lama. 5 Let us specify that in Tibetan Buddhism one can follow the teachings of any qualified master, but that it is strongly recommended to choose a lama in whom one will confide more specifically and who will guide the disciple directly in his spiritual work. This lama is called the "root lama" and the questionnaire showed that 2/3 of the followers had a "root lama".
In a very concise manner, I would highlight 6 essential points.
– First: authority is freely chosen. All disciples insist on the crucial fact that religious authority is not imposed on them. They freely choose to follow this or that master, and some even insist on the fact that they can also change masters if they made a mistake in their first choice.
– Second: Tibetan Buddhism encourages the establishment of an emotional relationship with the master. There is even talk of a “loving” relationship, even if the translation can be confusing, and we will come back to this, to describe the bond that must unite the master and the disciple. We are therefore invited to love our master and to be loved by him, which, from the point of view of the followers, establishes a true relationship of trust and greatly facilitates spiritual progress by allowing the heart, and not just the intellect, to be involved.
– Third: the lama is a being who has recognized qualities: he helps the disciple because he has already traveled the path and reached the end. And since he has experienced what he teaches, the master protects from the dangers and pitfalls of the spiritual path. He is both a guide and a safeguard.
– Fourth: the lama transmits the modalities of an experience that one must have in turn. He is not there only to transmit a theoretical teaching but to help his disciples to have an experience and to progress (pragmatism and efficiency).
– Fifth: He is radiant. We can know that he is a master because he radiates, because his actions are in conformity with his words: personal charisma.
– Sixth: The lama is the guarantor of the authenticity of an ancient tradition: he ensures that his disciples remain faithful to this thousand-year-old teaching which has proven itself over time.
Criticism of Western religious authorities (Christian or Jewish)
To better understand the typical character of this religious authority linked to the spiritual master, let us compare, using the followers' own words, this form of authority with that which they reject in the religious traditions of their childhood which they have left. We arrive at the following diagram:
– On one side we suffer, on the other we choose
– On one side we are in an impersonal, cold, bureaucratic relationship with authority, on the other we are in a personal, emotional, warm relationship
– On one side we are guided by someone who has traveled the path himself and knows all the pitfalls, on the other we are advised by people who have no personal experience of what they teach
– On one side we are in front of someone who shines, on the other we are in front of people who are most often sad, uncomfortable in their own skin, if not perverts.
– On one side we receive the modalities of a transformative experience, on the other we receive dogma and norms
The only point of convergence concerns tradition. In both cases, there is sensitivity to the authority of an ancient tradition, which has proven itself, and there is recognition of the need for an authority that faithfully transmits this sacred deposit. However, it is emphasized that the lama knows how to transmit this teaching better than pastors, priests, or rabbis, who lack pedagogy.
The power of charisma and its limits
To use classical categories from the sociology of religions, we can therefore say that authority in Tibetan Buddhism is of the charismatic type according to the Weberian ideal type. "Charismatic authority," writes Weber, "means: a domination (whether it be rather external or rather external) exercised over men, to which the dominated submit by virtue of the belief in this quality attached to this particular person."6 The master unites disciples around him through his personal influence. Most followers compare their lama to great charismatic Christian figures, such as Jesus or Francis of Assisi. The follower is attached to the community by the charisma of the spiritual master and invests in a strong personal and emotional relationship with the lama he has chosen as his spiritual guide. To take up the different modes of validation of belief developed by Danièle Hervieu-Léger, we could speak here of a mixed validation regime, both institutional and charismatic. Because the lamas clearly play a role of institutional mediators: their personal charisma allows, in a certain number of cases, to lead their disciples towards an institutional validation regime. 7
But while it allows many Western disciples to be socialized in Tibetan centers that transmit traditional practices and teachings, this charismatic character of authority is not without posing serious problems. Particularly sensitive indeed to the "radiance" of certain lamas, which contrasted singularly with the gray complexion of the priests of their childhood, many followers nevertheless came to project onto these masters all sorts of childish and romantic problems that no longer had much to do with the traditional notion of "devotion" to the master. By insisting on the importance of this devotion, notably in the Kagyupa school, the Tibetan lamas undoubtedly did not think to trigger so many affects, thus creating relationships often more passionate than spiritual. Thus, the careless transposition of a traditional religious notion into a modern universe where romantic love, seduction, and passion often intertwine in a confusing way, gives rise to astonishing misunderstandings. Since some Tibetan lamas are not insensitive to feminine charm, and since it is also culturally accepted in Tibet that a lama who has not taken monastic vows can have sexual relations with his disciples—another cultural misunderstanding with the Christian West, which unconsciously equates the lama with the Catholic priest—more than one Western disciple has found herself in a situation that is, to say the least, ambiguous. These misunderstandings have caused real scandals and sometimes even led to lawsuits in the United States. Certainly, we find such examples in all religions of pious followers falling in love with a cleric, who is all the more beloved because he seems inaccessible. But the problem more specific to the East transposed to the West, and to Tibetan Buddhism in particular, is that this amorous impulse can appear to be legitimized by the very authority of the tradition, which encourages the creation of strong personal links between master and disciple and does not hesitate to speak of "loving devotion" in a sense which becomes equivocal when transposed without precaution into a different cultural area.
Beyond this emotional aspect and the problems it poses, the purely charismatic nature of the method of insertion into the tradition actually constitutes a real handicap for the stabilization of followers in the community. Many followers leave the centers or stop attending them after the death of the master. 8 Either they abandon all contact with the sangha, the Buddhist community, and possibly continue to meditate alone, or they go to another center that depends on another master.
The East-West misunderstanding on spiritual authority
These problems did not exist in Tibet. On the one hand, because there was no misunderstanding surrounding the notions of a love bond and the unconscious process of idealizing the lama, and on the other hand, because the charismatic character was much less pronounced. What matters more to Tibetans than personal charisma is the charisma of function, the place of the spiritual master in the lineage, which refers to a fairly classic institutional model. A master like the Karmapa, who is the head of the great Kagyupa lineage, has a much greater aura for Tibetans than any lama in this lineage, however holy he may be. This is not the case in the West. Although he came to France many times, starting in 1974, the 16th Karmapa had very few Western disciples. Conversely, the first Westerners who went to India to visit the lamas in exile were struck by the personality of a Kagyupa lama of low institutional position, Kalu Rinpoche, who had spent more than thirty years meditating in caves in Tibet and who possessed extraordinary personal charisma. They invited this rather elderly lama to come to France. Although he spoke only Tibetan, he aroused immense enthusiasm, with most of his disciples saying they were literally "struck by lightning" when they saw him for the first time, sometimes even only in a photo. He single-handedly founded half of the Tibetan centers in France, inaugurated the practice of major retreats lasting three years, three months, and three days, and brought nearly thirty thousand people into refuge between 1975 and 1989, the date of his death.
After generating immense enthusiasm for his person, the managers of the centers he had founded had the unpleasant surprise of seeing attendance plummet after the master's death. Thus, the large center of Plaige, in Burgundy, which had invested several tens of millions of francs in the mid-1980s to build the largest Tibetan temple in the West and a hotel that could accommodate two hundred people, literally went bankrupt, its attendance having plummeted after the death of Kalu Rinpoche. It took more than ten years to pay off its debts thanks to donations from numerous patrons, and the crowds only returned to the center for the enthronement ceremony of a four-year-old child recognized as the reincarnation of Kalu Rinpoche. We witnessed exactly the same phenomenon in the United States after the death of the very charismatic Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche.
Conclusion
This emphasis on the personal charisma of the master to the detriment of other modes of legitimacy of authority, including the charisma of function, constitutes a profound transformation in the passage of the dharma from the East to the West. It is at once the great strength and the great weakness of Tibetan Buddhism in the West: a force of attraction that attracts many disciples by minimizing the place of the institution, it constitutes at the same time an obstacle to the stabilization and loyalty of followers in the tradition.