CEIFR Notebooks
Compared to other conversion processes observed in France, it is important to immediately highlight the specific nature of the issue of "conversion" to Buddhism. Firstly, this is a religious tradition recently imported into France: apart from a few cases involving Asians, it is not a "return" to one's original tradition, but rather a change of religion or a conversion of individuals "without religion" to this tradition of Asian origin. Secondly, and we will return to this point, there is also the problem of defining Buddhism as a "religion." We will see, in particular, how this tradition attracts a number of individuals precisely because it does not appear to them to be definable—rightly or wrongly—as a religion. We are thus faced with the paradox of highly committed individuals who reject any idea of "conversion to Buddhism" (the term referring too explicitly, in their eyes, to a religious issue), and conversely, of individuals with very little commitment who explicitly identify as "Buddhist." This is why, in the thesis I have just defended and published on Buddhism in France, I carefully avoided, in an initial overview of the phenomenon, using terms like "converts," "followers," or even "followers," preferring to speak indiscriminately of people "touched" by Buddhism. We will see that the number of French people truly socialized into Buddhism through attending a center or studying with a teacher and engaging in regular spiritual practice is very small. And we can only speak of "conversion" in relation to this highly involved population. Before examining this conversion process in more detail within the specific context of Tibetan Buddhism—the most represented Buddhist tradition in France—and demonstrating how it powerfully illuminates the relationship between tradition and modernity, let us briefly recall how, since the mid-19th century, a particular understanding of Buddhism has been formed in the West. This understanding profoundly sheds light on the current success of the Buddha's message in the land of Descartes, and we will also touch upon some general points about Buddhism in France.
I. Historical Background: The Construction of a Perception
Buddhism has only been truly known in the West for a little over 150 years. Although numerous contacts with local Buddhist traditions had occurred since the 13th century, travelers and missionaries of the Middle Ages and Renaissance had not yet fully grasped the history of Buddhism and its unity amidst the immense diversity of cults and doctrines prevalent in most Asian countries. Certainly, since the 17th century, some Europeans had surmised the Indian origin of the Buddha and were managing, with varying degrees of success, to situate his historical existence. In 1691 and 1693, Simon de la Loubère, Louis XIV's envoy to the court of the King of Siam, published remarkable works that established the possibility of a link between the various religions of Siam, Ceylon, Japan, and China, and suggested the possible existence of a single founder well before Christ. But these isolated insights had little impact in Europe. It was not until the founding of the Asiatic Society of Bengal in 1784 that Orientalism experienced a rapid and decisive surge. By the 1820s, the word "Buddhism" appeared, and with it the first conceptualization of a multifaceted, branching tree. But it was not until the publication, in 1844, of Eugène Burnouf's seminal work, Introduction to the History of Indian Buddhism, that precise knowledge became available through a critical comparison of diverse sources. The work of this French scholar and other pioneers of Buddhist studies—primarily Alexander Csoma de Köros and Edmond Foucaux on Tibet, Jean-Pierre Abel-Rémusat and Stanislas Julien on China, and Christian Lassen and Spence Hardy on Ceylon—sparked a tremendous enthusiasm for Buddhism in Europe. From then on, it has continued to spread in successive waves to this day.
Over these 150 years of Buddhism's dissemination in the West, two major points stand out regarding its reception. First, Buddhism is constantly received through distorting cultural lenses and reinterpreted at each significant stage of its spread according to the concerns of the Westerners who adopt it. Then – and this is true across all periods – Westerners have always sought to emphasize Buddhism's connection to modernity. Since its scholarly rediscovery, we have thus been led to distinguish four major periods in which Buddhism experienced a resurgence and was reinterpreted – always from a modernist perspective – according to the needs and mentalities of Westerners. 6
First period: Buddhist rationalism (mid-19th century)
For the contemporaries of Baudelaire and Hugo, Buddhism, which had just been brought to light by scholarly studies, appeared above all as an atheist doctrine that claimed to rely solely on reason, placed individual experience at the center of its practice, seemed to rest on no immutable dogma, proposed a humanist morality without reference to any divine revelation, etc. People particularly enjoy comparing Christian "moralism" or "dogmatism" with the Buddhist philosophical system, which is "purely rational" and surprisingly "compatible with modernity." Thus, in the second half of the 19th century, Buddhism spread, first in France and then throughout Europe, as a formidable argument against Christianity. Most atheist, anti-clerical, or simply hostile intellectuals opposed to Roman "intransigence"—Taine, Renan, Nietzsche, Renouvier, Michelet, and others—extolled Buddhist "rationalism," "atheism," and "positivism" against Christianity, which, according to Auguste Comte's positivist view, represented an infantile stage of humanity. Nietzsche, for example, wrote in 1888 in The Antichrist: “Buddhism is a hundred times more realistic than Christianity; it has inherited by atavism the capacity to pose problems objectively and coldly; it comes after a philosophical movement that lasted hundreds of years; the notion of God is already liquidated when it appears. Buddhism is the only truly positivist religion that history presents to us; even in its theory of knowledge (a strict phenomenalism), it no longer declares ‘war on sin,’ but, restoring reality to its rightful place, ‘war on suffering.’ It has transcended—and this profoundly distinguishes it from Christianity—the self-deception of moral notions; it stands, to use my own language, beyond Good and Evil.” "But this idealization and instrumentalization of Buddhism for polemical purposes will not withstand, on the one hand, the Christian counter-offensive which presents Buddhism as pure nihilism and a dreadful doctrine of nothingness – an interpretation reinforced by the assimilation of Buddhism to the radically pessimistic doctrine of the German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer8 – on the other hand, the dissemination of scholarly works concerning Northern Buddhism, known as Great Vehicle, which presents many religious traits close to Catholicism: abundance of rituals, importance of hierarchy and decorum, beliefs in deities, demonic spirits, heavens and hells… Thus, after having praised it to the skies, most European intellectuals turn away from Buddhism.
Second phase: Esoteric Buddhism (late 19th century).
Alongside this decline, Buddhism experienced a resurgence, this time through occult circles which, while remaining rooted in a rationalist perspective, nevertheless attempted to reconnect with symbolic and mythical thought in opposition to the "materialism" of Western thought. This is why Tibetan Buddhism, which in their eyes combined rational and magical thinking, gained the support of the esoteric movements that proliferated in Europe and the United States at the turn of the century. The most illustrious of these, the Theosophical Society, was founded in 1875 by a Russian medium, Helena Blavatsky, and an American colonel, Henry Olcott. The Theosophists were fascinated by mysterious Tibet and revived the myth of magical Tibet and lamas with extraordinary psychic powers, who were considered the last "great initiates" of the planet. The myth of a secret Tibet, of lamas with magical powers, dates back to the distant accounts of medieval travelers such as Marco Polo and William of Rubruck, and was quite widespread in the West during the last quarter of the 19th century. Moreover, at that time, Tibet was completely forbidden to Westerners, which only amplified the fantasies surrounding it. The Theosophists could find no better refuge for their famous "Mahatmas" or "Masters" than this inaccessible Tibet—no Western expedition managed to reach Lhasa, the mythical capital of the land of snow, during the second half of the 19th century. "There are occultists of various degrees of advancement all over the world, and even occult brotherhoods that have much in common with the main brotherhood established in Tibet," wrote Alfred Sinnett, one of the leading Theosophists, author of a bestseller with the eloquent title: Esoteric Buddhism (1881). “But all our research on this subject has convinced me that the Tibetan brotherhood is by far the highest, and that it is considered as such by all the others.” 9
Third moment: Buddhist pragmatism (1960s)
Initiated into “esoteric Buddhism” by the Theosophical Society, the French explorer Alexandra David-Néel, through her extraordinary journey, marks a true transition between this heritage of esoteric Buddhism and the spread of a new Buddhist wave in the West in the aftermath of the Second World War, this time marked by experience and pragmatism. During this long journey in the East, in contact with numerous local traditions, particularly Tibetan ones, Alexandra discovered with Tibetan yogis what no book could offer her: the teaching of meditation. Thus she wrote in 1921: “Meditation is the profound basis of the Buddhist life, the basis of Buddhist doctrine, itself derived from the meditation of its founder, Sidattha Gotama, the Buddha. Just as one cannot logically call a man who does not pray a Christian, one who does not meditate has no real right to call himself a Buddhist.”10 At the time the French explorer wrote these lines, the first Westerners to understand the existential significance of Buddhism linked to the effectiveness of its techniques had to travel to Asia to learn to practice from competent masters. Today, the presence of numerous Asian spiritual masters in the West—it is quite clear that the Tibetan tragedy<sup>11</sup> played a major role in this process, fostering contact between the many Tibetan lamas in exile and Westerners—and the establishment of several thousand meditation centers allow anyone who wishes to engage "existentially" in the Buddhist path by learning, under the guidance of an expert, various practices, of which meditation is the archetype. The French explorer and orientalist merely anticipated by half a century what would become, from the 1960s onward, the dominant characteristic of the interest in Buddhism among many young people from the counterculture movement: a spiritual path that allows for self-work, self-knowledge, and self-transformation.
The inner experience fostered by Buddhist meditation is conceived as a true science. Thus, to Western science, which focuses on external phenomena, Matthieu Ricard, a former researcher at the Pasteur Institute who became a Tibetan Buddhist monk, contrasts the "inner science" of Buddhism, a "science" that allows us to answer the great questions of existence and help individuals find true happiness. This individual pursuit of happiness, central to psychological modernity, also constitutes the core of the Buddhist approach, itself perceived by Westerners as rigorous and pragmatic. We can therefore say that Buddhism offers these new adherents a kind of "modern science of the subject," to borrow Edgar Morin's expression, which also possesses a decisive advantage: that of practically fostering individual happiness through self-work that integrates all dimensions of the person: body, imagination, emotions, psyche, and spirit.
Fourth moment: Buddhist humanism (late 20th century)
For the past ten years or so, we have witnessed a media frenzy around Buddhism, and particularly around the emblematic figure of the Dalai Lama, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1989. Since then, Hollywood films, television programs and press kits devoted to the "Buddhist wave" have multiplied and many books about Buddhism have become bestsellers. Through this intense media coverage, several million Westerners are now being influenced by Buddhism in a wide variety of ways: occasional meditation practice—sometimes within an explicitly Christian framework—beliefs in karma and reincarnation (24% of Europeans hold these beliefs)—and, above all, a strong affinity for the values of religious tolerance, interdependence, compassion and respect for life, and individual and universal responsibility, values that permeate all the Dalai Lama's speeches, books, and interviews. The "modernity" of Buddhism is once again highlighted. But this time, it is primarily through its ethical dimension, which seems well-suited to the major challenges facing humanity today, particularly the dangers of religious fanaticism and ecological threats. It is worth noting that this new surge in Buddhism in the West is occurring at the very moment when the last great political utopias are collapsing. It is on a field of ideological ruins that the media-driven Buddhism of the Dalai Lama is developing in the West and appears to many as a new "secular wisdom" with universal values.
Conclusion: a dual heritage.
Through this heritage, Buddhism appears above all "modern," because it is rational—a religion without God or dogma—because it is pragmatic and effective, and finally because it constitutes a kind of humanism, a secular wisdom, adapted to the great challenges of our time. Alongside the gradual construction of this representation of Buddhism as a "modern religion," which now permeates everyone's minds, we have seen that since the end of the 19th century, a specific imaginary concerning Tibetan Buddhism has been developing. Throughout the 20th century, an abundant body of esoteric literature only reinforced this myth of "magical Tibet," a myth that finds its most accomplished popular expression in a comic strip like Tintin in Tibet. The tragedy of Tibet, invaded by China in 1950 and subjected to a veritable genocide ever since, reinforces in the minds of many Westerners this idealization of a traditional Tibet, "totally pure and peaceful," which fights against Chinese totalitarian power using only the weapons of the mind. The emblematic figure of the Dalai Lama alone embodies this dual Western imaginary: he appears modern, rational, and non-dogmatic, close to Western science, tolerant, and professing compassion and responsibility. At the same time, through his pacifist struggle, he embodies the millennia-old Tibetan tradition threatened with extinction, but also this magical Tibet, which believes in signs from the heavens and oracles, which sees great masters reincarnated as small children and lamas with mysterious powers. Thus, the current success of Tibetan Buddhism in the West plays out between a modern perception on the one hand and the appeal of magical thinking and recourse to an ancient tradition on the other.
II. A Brief Overview of Buddhism in France:
By the curious twists of history, France found itself in the 20th century at the crossroads of the most diverse Buddhist currents: Vietnamese who came to fight in Europe during the First World War; the establishment in the early 1960s, in the Southeast of France, of the European Center of the Japanese Soka Gakkai movement; Tibetan lamas called upon by Western disciples to found centers in France in the late 1960s; the arrival, at the same time, of the Japanese master Taisen Deshimaru who chose France to transmit Zen to the West; and the influx of Cambodian and Vietnamese political refugees fleeing the Khmer Rouge massacres in the 1970s. The main currents of Asian Buddhism are therefore well represented in France. But while Southeast Asian communities remain fairly insular, Zen and Tibetan traditions are attracting thousands of French people eager to learn about the Buddha's teachings and practice meditation. There are currently over two hundred Zen and Tibetan meditation centers in France. One of the main Zen dojos in Europe is in Touraine, and the largest Tibetan monastery in the West is in Auvergne. Completely absent from the official religious landscape less than ten years ago, Buddhism is now recognized, de facto, by the government as the fourth largest religion in France, and since 1997, Buddhists have had their share of religious programming on television.
Is it possible to count the number of French Buddhists? The figures generally cited vary considerably. The Buddhist Union of France (UBF) counts 600,000 followers according to a precise breakdown: 50,000 Chinese, 400,000 refugees from Southeast Asia, and 150,000 native French (it is obviously this last figure that matters for the purposes of this study). Much less optimistic, François Jacquemard, head of Editions Claire Lumière, which has published the Guide to Tibet in France for about fifteen years, estimated in 1993 that the number of French "converts" to Buddhism, across all schools of thought, was less than 10,000. The French public authorities, through the Ministry of the Interior and Religious Affairs, estimate the number of Buddhists in France at "a maximum of 400,000," including "approximately 50,000 French converts." 13. The media also refer to polls showing that several million French people are drawn to Buddhism and receptive to some of its themes, such as tolerance and the freedom for each individual to follow their own path. Besides their lack of justification, these figures are meaningless if they are not linked to various categories. Aside from Buddhists of Asian origin, how many native-born French people are influenced by Buddhism? Whether we are talking about 2 million, 150,000, 50,000, or even 10,000 French people who have become "Buddhist," to what extent are they Buddhist and according to what criteria? How can we update various models or categories to assess the true significance of a phenomenon distorted by intense media exploitation and to measure its impact on individuals and on French society? In our study, we have attempted to demonstrate that the most appropriate criterion for our purpose is that of involvement, a criterion that corresponds much better to the characteristics of Buddhism and religious modernity than criteria of belonging, adherence, or identity. Involvement is, in fact, a neutral axiological criterion, devoid of religious connotations, which avoids all the rhetorical games, misunderstandings, and theoretical pitfalls associated with the notions of adherence and identity. Applied to Buddhism, it allows us to measure the intensity of individuals' commitment without privileging or excluding any of the numerous parameters to be considered: intellectual investment, meditation practice, ritual practice, adoption of principles of ethical conduct, and so on. The work we have undertaken thus allows us to distinguish three main categories based on a criterion of involvement: from the most committed – the “practitioners” socialized in centers – to the least committed – the “sympathizers” sensitive to Buddhist values – passing through the “close associates,” an intermediate category encompassing three models: syncretic dabblers, Christians who practice meditation, and agnostic intellectuals. Based on the records of Zen and Tibetan centers, we can estimate approximately 12,000 to 15,000 “regular practitioners,” to which we can add the roughly 6,000 to 7,000 members of the Soka Gakkai. A recent survey (Psychologies-BVA, December 1999), confirming other previous opinion polls, puts the number of “sympathizers” at 5 million. Finally, we can very roughly estimate the number of “close associates” at between 100,000 and 150,000. This initial draft of a census categorized by level of involvement allows us not only to gain a more precise understanding of the actual impact of Buddhism in France—very few truly committed individuals and many who are "sensitive"—but also to draw comparisons with other religious movements. It becomes clear that the French who claim a Buddhist religious identity are essentially the few hundred thousand Asians, to which we can just add a few thousand French people—primarily from the Tibetan tradition and the Soka Gakkai—who identify as "converts."
Let
us focus on the French who have been socialized within the Tibetan tradition, who regularly attend a center, engage in various ritual and meditative practices, and readily identify as "Buddhists," even if this label does not carry a religious connotation for all of them. The numerous testimonies we gathered through interviews (around thirty) and questionnaires (over 600) reveal a threefold movement at work in the process of conversion to Tibetan Buddhism. On the one hand, practitioners are deeply integrated into the modern world and seem shaped by the primacy of rationality, individualism, and pragmatism so characteristic of modernity. It is this perceived kinship between Buddhism and modernity that draws them toward this spiritual path. On the other hand, they criticize certain aspects of modernity—lack of spiritual hierarchy, consumer society, stifling technocratic rationalism, etc.—and it is often in the name of this critique that they turn to the Buddhist tradition, seeking experienced spiritual masters to help them live an "authentic spiritual experience." It is therefore through this threefold relationship between modernity, critique of modernity, and appeal to tradition that the processes of conversion within Tibetan Buddhism should be studied, highlighting all the adjustments and rebalancing that Western followers of Buddhism attempt to make between these three poles. Here, very briefly summarized, are a few avenues to explore.
Rational thought and magical thinking
. It is clear from the survey that the development of Buddhism is fostered by both modernity and the crisis of modernity. From modernity, it incorporates the fundamental values of individualism and rational-pragmatism. None of the interviewed followers considered questioning these two postulates. All are perfect representatives of modern individualism and emphasize their freedom of choice or personal happiness, as well as the rational, concrete, and effective aspects of Buddhism. The fact that most of them are city dwellers, from bourgeois backgrounds, and highly educated makes them particularly representative of Western individuality at its most extreme. Within the crisis of modernity, however, lies a more archaic, magical, symbolic, and ritualistic character, allowing the atomized individual to reconnect with a sacred cosmos. This oscillation between rational and magical thought is particularly evident in Tibetan Buddhism. The testimony of Christophe, a 32-year-old graduate of the École Polytechnique, is eloquent in this regard: “What I really liked about Buddhism is this rational approach and, at the same time, this magical aspect. The flaw in the scientific approach, especially today, is that we have fallen into extremes, what we call scientism, radical materialism. This is a danger.” While the scientific perspective was initially a good thing—it challenged the religious dogmas of the Catholic Church—it went too far into materialism and a reductionist view of reality. Buddhism has a perspective that is both very logical and entirely scientific, but it is not limited to that. Indeed, there is a dimension in Buddhism that transcends rational understanding, the world of concepts. When a great master, whether the Karmapa or Lama Gendun, performs miracles—and they do, I have seen them—it is beyond comprehension. There is a magical aspect that exists nowhere else.
However, we observed that some Westerners drawn to Tibetan Buddhism, and who were clearly particularly fascinated by its magical, mysterious, and initiatory aspects, felt the need in their discourse to minimize, or even deny, this "marvelous" character in order to emphasize the modern, rational, pragmatic, and even "scientific" nature of this tradition. We will hypothesize that Tibetan Buddhism particularly attracts Westerners seeking a typically religious experience—involving faith, emotion, the sacred, symbolism, ritual, and myth—but who need the rational and modern discourse of Buddhism to return to religion. These are most often former Catholics rebelling against the religion of their childhood, or individuals without prior religious experience, but too deeply embedded in the modern rationalist world to recognize—in the eyes of others, but sometimes even in their own—their need to connect with a sacred cosmos. One might also wonder whether this impossibility of defining Buddhism as a religion according to the usual substantive criteria, despite its many characteristics, is not one of the important reasons for Buddhism's attraction to Westerners who no longer want to hear about "religion," but whose religious yearning remains as pressing as ever. The recipe for Buddhist success is, in a way, the opposite of that of Canada Dry: it doesn't look like religion, and yet it is!
Tradition and modernity: a religion without God or dogma.
Let's now look more closely at the relationship between tradition and modernity. Our research has convinced us that recourse to tradition in no way negates the effects of modern individualism on contemporary religious beliefs and behaviors, such as the loss of credibility and the erosion of religious institutions. The attempt to re-engage with a Buddhist tradition is more of an effort to rebalance against the excesses of modernity than an attempt to escape modernity and return to the stable world of tradition. It is precisely because it possesses a real affinity with modernity—an affinity, it is true, often exaggerated, but nonetheless real—that Buddhism allows Westerners to draw upon this tradition. The paradox of Buddhism, repeatedly emphasized for over 150 years and which exasperates our Manichean logic, lies in this association of traits typical of the traditional religious universe and traits typical of modernity. For many Westerners, it constitutes a privileged meeting point of the modern and traditional worlds, in which they can select what suits them best from both. This rather unique space, within which individuals rooted in the modern world, but in search of horizons of meaning other than those offered by techno-science and consumer society, allow them to reconcile certain fundamental achievements of modernity—reason, individualism, pragmatism, relativism—with a "profound" spiritual experience, authenticated by "experts" in religion, but stripped of the most "outdated" characteristics of their traditional religious universe: God, dogma, and norms. Buddhism thus appears as a "modern religion," that is, a well-defined spiritual path, but one that leaves the individual complete freedom of choice and action. "What particularly touched me about Buddhism is the freedom given to each person to take what suits them," explains Jacqueline, a retired teacher, thus emphasizing the decidedly modern nature of her approach. But she immediately stresses the necessity of being rooted in a tradition by following the guidance of a wise teacher: "You cannot do without an authentic being who has lived the experience before you and who is like a mirror for you. They can verify the authenticity of your spiritual experience at every moment."
Individuals drawn to Buddhism remain very sensitive to the modern values of individualism, freedom of choice, and subjectivity that continue to undermine traditional religion, whatever its form. At the same time, they want to situate their spiritual journey within a "lineage of practitioners" that traces back to the Buddha himself. This appeal to tradition seems to fulfill several functions. We will highlight at least four.
First, an initiatory function, which manifests itself in a dual pedagogical and protective aspect. All practitioners emphasize the necessity of learning to meditate from experienced guides. The search for a spiritual master is therefore paramount. This master is chosen freely—a central characteristic of modernity—but the disciple then commits to following their recommendations with complete trust regarding their learning of the spiritual life, and particularly meditation. Tradition is also perceived as a bulwark against archaic mystical experiences that the meditator fears encountering during their spiritual path.
Furthermore, for many practitioners, recourse to tradition serves a socializing function. It responds to the needs of individuals with fragmented life paths to recreate social connections by joining, even temporarily and partially, other "meditators" within the framework of a shared practice and belief system. Practitioners of Tibetan Buddhism emphasize the role and personality of the lama as the unifying force of the community. For them, a Buddhist community only has meaning in relation to the spiritual master who gathers a number of disciples around him. When the master dies, the community no longer has a real reason to exist. This is why many followers leave the center after the death of the lama who had touched them and seek another lama elsewhere. It can therefore be said that religious socialization in Tibetan Buddhism is primarily charismatic.
The recourse to tradition also serves a stabilizing and unifying function, as it offers individuals with fragmented personal lives the possibility of finding, even superficially, a certain coherence and stability. The survey, conducted primarily through questionnaires, revealed that most practitioners of Tibetan Buddhism truly "converted" to Buddhism after the age of 30, typically around 35-40. Many had previously experienced rather chaotic lives, both emotionally and spiritually. Seeking values different from those offered by Western society and disillusioned with their original religion, they spent a long time searching for meaning in their existence and what they readily call their "own spiritual path." For years, they pursued a wide-ranging exploration through various philosophical and spiritual readings, personal development workshops, Gestalt or Jungian psychological work, yoga practice, and so on. During this multifaceted journey, many of them encountered Buddhism through a book, a lecture, or a trip to Asia. They felt an affinity and interest in the Buddha's teachings, but not to the point of committing to a practice. Then, a few years later, still adrift, they rediscover Buddhism by chance, through an encounter or a book, and decide to walk through the door of a center. The turning point is then most often immediate. They recognize in the Buddhist message and practices what they have longed for for many years. Suddenly, their nascent journey seems to find a new coherence. Conversion within a tradition thus appears as an essential process in the construction of an identity. A modern space of freedom where each person can adjust their personal spiritual needs as well as a traditional space of rootedness, Buddhism seems, here too, perfectly suited to the paradoxical demands of Westerners.
For all practitioners of Buddhism, the appeal to tradition ultimately takes on a memorial function. What they seek in invoking tradition is by no means its normative and constraining character, but the possibility it offers them of integrating their individual quest into a grand historical adventure. Here too, the rearticulation of the relationship to tradition seems to take place within the framework of an emotional religiosity according to Weber's "ideal type." In the general context of the dissemination of belief, recourse to charismatic figures, on whom emotion is focused, constitutes one of the only ways for the "small pages" of atomized individual journeys to be incorporated into the "great Book" of Tradition. Danièle Hervieu-Léger's work on tradition and memory proves very illuminating here. Inscription in a lineage of believers, or more precisely here in a lineage of practitioners and individuals who have had this fundamental experience of "awakening," is an essential feature of Buddhism. Every Tibetan lama or Zen master begins their teaching by referring to their teachers and showing the lineage that connects them to some distant founder of the lineage, all of whom trace their lineage, from master to disciple, back to the Buddha himself. For Christophe, "Buddhism is the only living, authentic tradition that has been passed down from master to disciple on the planet." Jacqueline, for her part, emphasizes that "it is said in Tibetan Buddhism that if the living transmission is broken at any point, everything will be lost."
Do conversions to Tibetan Buddhism constitute a stable return to a traditional religious world? Careful observation of the behavior of these new converts shows that this is not the case. Behind the apparent submission to the "Buddhist teachings," all sorts of improvisations are still at play, and most of these commitments remain very fragile. This new tradition, this new authority, is no longer received; it is chosen. This complete reversal allows modern individuals to embark on this conversion process, but also encourages them to reappropriate the tradition and adapt it to their needs… even if it means abandoning it if this adaptation proves impossible. Indeed, today it is no longer tradition that imposes itself on the individual and molds them, but rather the individual who chooses a tradition and adapts it to their personal needs. As Danièle Hervieu-Léger points out, “being religious in modernity is not so much about knowing oneself to be begotten as about wanting to be begotten. This fundamental reshaping of the relationship to tradition that characterizes modern religious belief opens up, in principle without limit, the possibilities for invention, bricolage, and manipulation of the systems of meaning capable of constituting tradition.”18
Thus, among French followers of Tibetan Buddhism, we observe not only significant bricolage at the level of beliefs, but also a very loose sense of community. Those in charge of the centers deplore a very high turnover rate: approximately 10% of practitioners remain faithful for more than five years and 3% for more than ten years, according to statistics from the Karma Ling Institute. Followers of Tibetan Buddhism, in particular, tend to change centers according to the evolution of their needs and the occasional presence of a particular high lama who comes to give an initiation or a teaching. Noted by sociologists across numerous European countries, this fluidity of commitment and this instrumental conception of community is perfectly typical of religious modernity and affects all historical religions as well as new religious movements. They reflect, once again, this Copernican revolution of religious consciousness: it is no longer tradition that dictates meaning to the individual, but the individual who freely seeks what makes sense to them in one or more religions. Religious "self-service" is the consequence of this shift in the relationship to tradition, and, apart from a small minority of believers deeply and lastingly socialized within a religion, most Westerners who convert today within a historical tradition are neither fully committed—subjective reinterpretations and improvisations remain at play—nor are they committed in a lasting way. "There are excellent reasons why people in the post-religious era might be tempted to convert in all directions," emphasizes Marcel Gauchet. And there are even better reasons why their conversions are neither very solid nor very lasting, because they are unable to renounce the reasons that lead them to convert, which is necessary for a conversion to be fully effective. This back-and-forth and lame compromise between adherence and distance, between the cult of the problem and the choice of the solution, defines the specific religiosity of the era—and perhaps the sustainable mode of survival for the religious in a world without religion. Conversion to Buddhism offers an excellent example of this.
Frédéric Lenoir (CEIFR, EHESS, Paris)