The Appropriation of Buddhism

           What is it that people find so powerful about Buddhism that they find the need to appropriate it? Many people in America have taken aspects of Buddhism into their own lives, even if they identify as another religion. Peacefulness and mindfulness, the idea of leading a moral life, and the idea of developing wisdom are all beliefs within Buddhism that many Westerners have begun to believe. However, there are other beliefs that many people have yet to follow, which is why people are appropriating and adjusting the religion to make it their own.  

         At first, I thought that people were secularizing the religion by taking certain aspects of the religion and not others into their lives. Yes, there are some ways in which Americans secularize the religion, such as by putting a monk on an Apple ad. However, people are beginning to follow these beliefs because they know that these aspects of Buddhism are teaching something about life. These aspects of the religion are providing people with a means of guidance, which is exactly what religion is for. Therefore, it is clear that Buddhism, even the way that it is often used in pop culture is acting religiously. Also, often times many celebrities are seen in pictures with the Dalai Lama, however the Dalai Lama is as much of a celebrity himself. However, he isn’t respected like that without reason; he is respected because he has something to teach. He can help people, which is once again a way that he acts religiously.

         The fact that he is able to provide guidance, beliefs, and rituals for people, even if people do not take in all of these beliefs, shows that he is acting in some ways as a religion. Also, the reality is that people must appropriate different aspects of life in order to make these aspects relevant now. There are areas of all religions that have been appropriated because if everything was left the same, then it would be so irrelevant and people would ultimately choose not to follow any religions. People are so fascinated with Buddhism and its practices because it is some form of “other,” but they are also enthralled with the way that it can actually affect their lives today.

        The Dalai Lama shown on the cover of Vogue Magazine below is being in a form of popular culture, but he is there because the editors of the magazine believed that he had something meaningful to share with the readers. Jane Naomi Iwamura characterizes the Oriental Monk as a “spiritual caregiver.” Although there are negative connotations that come along with Orientalism in Western pop culture, the idea of the monk as a caregiver seems to be a positive one because he is able to provide something for those who choose to follow him.

Religion in Rap

As a society we are fascinated with the unknown and the mysterious. We are drawn to cultures and people that bring us further away from our comfort zones. Throughout history music has attracted individuals looking for an escape from their mundane and safe lifestyles. Music is a way for individuals to feel connected to something unknown and potentially dangerous, without fully submerging themselves into the culture that the music represents. For example, millions of people joined the Rock movement in the 50s and 60s but many followers didn’t truly understand the lyrics that the music represented. Anthony Pinn relates this idea to rap music and explains that many individuals “lack any understanding of the complexity of its message.”

“Who Do You Believe In?” by 2 pac references his struggle to maintain his faith while living a poor and violent neighborhood. His lyrics express how he was affected by his surrounding environment, “Maybe it’s just the drugs, visions of how the block was/Crack came and it was strange how it rocked us.” Ultimately, 2 pac proclaims that his faith in God kept him “blessed and still breathin.” While many people can’t relate to the struggles that 2 pac has gone through in his life, individuals are attracted to his music because his lyrics represent someone who has fought to overcome struggle and become successful. 2 pac illustrates that rap does not “promote a culture of disrespect and immorality,” but rather rap needs to be analyzed and discussed to understand its influences, such as religion.    

White presence in black music

Has the racial bias in the US allowed for non-white groups to express their culture fully?

In its beginnings, jazz music was a natural creation influenced by the many cultural identities that black people in the US associated with. From rhythms and beats from indigenous African musical traditions, phrases and ideas from spirituals, and the melodic intricacies of european folk music came a way for American blacks to convey their experiences living in the US.  The expression aspect is key. Jazz and blues were a way for blacks to cope with the oppressive societal ideals that whites imposed upon them. Anthony Pinn describes jazz as "a way of humanizing a dehumanizing environment" (Making a World with a Beat, 3). So, it appears a little strange that jazz has become so whitewashed in recent years. In the early stages of jazz, as a genre it was seen by whites as lewd, dangerous, immoral, and inappropriate. But now, since jazz music has been around so long, it has been transformed into something safe and acceptable for whites. The original intention of jazz has been ignored and replaced by something less offensive to whites. Jazz's ties to oppression have been long forgotten so that whites can enjoy it without being offended. What was once a form of basic human expression has been appropriated into an indication of sophistication being cultured. One of the most famous jazz musicians, Louis Armstrong, was criticized for making his performances more commercially appealing to white people by furthering negative black stereotypes in the way he acted on stage and in films. In his performances he would sometimes pretend to be the idiotic oaf that white culture wanted him to be, even though he was an extremely talented, respectable man. He was not intimidating or overtly hateful or inappropriate in his music so he was chosen as a figurehead for making jazz more safe for whites. But in appropriating jazz and removing the emotional aspects, you strip it of its essence and all that is left is a melody and a beat. 

Mos Def: The New Prophet

"There is a confirmed wrestling between sacred and secular in music production, and the resulting friction represents an attempt to address the deeper issues of life"- Pinn (p.8). Just like any other music genres, Hip-Hop is a mix of the sacred and the profane. Besides the "typical" songs about sex, drugs, money and women, rap artists sing about friendship, love, truth, family and even God. Mos Def is one of the most prominent rappers of his generation to focus on religious issues and aspects of morality and race. In 1999, his breakthrough album Black on Both Sides, catches the viewers attention with it's witty title and powerful message. As an African-American Muslim, Black on Both Sides represents Mos Def's identity as perceived by the American society. 
Hiding behind this stereotypical representation are powerful lyrics that address topics like African-American self-esteem, the destiny of humankind and a strong recognition of God. The first words that the listeners hear are Bismillah ar-Rahman ar-Raheem" ("In the name of God, the most gracious, the most merciful"), the first words of every chapter of the Quran except for one. The album is thus another chapter of the Quran, it acquires a sacred mythological meaning and offers invaluable teachings to its listeners. The socially and spiritually themed lyrics guide us through Mos Def’s view of the world. In "Fear Not of Man", Mos Def raps "Mind over matter and soul before flesh/Angels for the pain keep a record in time/which is passin and runnin like a caravan freighter/The world is overrun with the wealthy and the wicked/But God is sufficient in disposin of affairs/Gunmen and stockholders try to merit my fear/But God is sufficient over plans they prepared". The devotion to God and the emphasis on mind and soul over money-oriented thinking, guide Mos’s lyrics and offer a solution to the repression and corruption of the outside world.
Mos Def is not just a preacher but an entertainer as well, his lyrics mix the sacred and the profane in order to appeal to a larger group of people. Just like buddhist practices and the “oriental monk” have been adopted by the American culture to “embody the a new hope of saving the West from capitalist greed, brute force, totalitarian rule, and spiritless technology”, sacred Islamic values have been incorporated into Mos Def’s “profane” genre music in order to promote the welfare of mankind (Iwamura). Ultimately, He takes on the role of a muslim prophet who journeys the hip-hop world in search of new religious ground for reconciliation and spiritual education of the masses.   

Lost in Translation: Guru English

What are some of the repercussions of mash-ups from different myths when you try to take one world-view and tell it in a completely different culture and language? This is what Jane Iwamura grapples with in The Oriental Monk. Asian figures like the Dalai Lama and the samari both have become stereotypes and idealized icons in our Western culture. Instead of looking at the nuances of traditions and the characteristics in these people, Americans take a sound-byte of information. We condense everything down, and repeat that morphed image or phrase so much that we believe it was the original – we make myths.

I’d call this cultural reframing: consciously or not, we reframe these new and Orient cultures with our Western conceptions. In America, we like things that are new but not too new and “alien” so we conform ideals that fit into our Western, secular, and subtly-racist culture. Within this interplay between exoticism and appropriation, we mash-up a “wide range of religious figures (gurus, sages, swamis, masters, teachers) from a variety of ethnic backgrounds (South Asian, Japanese, Vietnamese, Chinese)” (Iwamrua) into a homogenized ‘Oriental Monk’ figure, for example.  

Our language too, is a mash-up. Words are adapted, shortened, and taken from other culture and transformed into English. And as we do, these words are culturally reframed to fit into our vocabulary of Western values.

In the late 1800s, South Asian Buddhists and Hindus sought to connect with those who could “only connect in English.” So they translated Hindu texts into English but then spun off different meanings to make them more accessible to the Western mind-set. And from this, as scholar Srinivas Aravamudan writes, Guru English was born.

You’ve probably heard it. Mindfulness, esoteric, auras, spiritualism, magnetism, energy fields. These words are mash-ups from a number of religious teachings, yet exist without a “sociological basis or doctrinal core.” With these words, secular Westerners could conceptualize and believe in certain Hindu teachings that at the time were considered primal and unclean. For Westerners, these words are catchy and easy to say; they played off scientific movements of the day, but had a credible and ancient past. Therefore, these “mutants and recombinants to jostle, proliferate, and clash within the confines of a common theolinguistic frame.” In the hazy space of East-West connection, these words modify Hindu and Buddhist teachings into “scientific” and Western jargon.

Certain things have been lost in this transmission of teachings. With these words, we see a theolinguistic slippage and a muddying of theological teachings. Sometimes we have to ask, what do these words even mean? When we hear the term prana, do we think back to the ancient Bhagavad-Gita and Patanjali? Or are is it a mix of breath, force - spirit - vitalism - healing - America's physical culture and alternative medicine. Similarly, the term “God” in Guru English can signify a "God" (Isvara, Yaweh, Vishu, Allah, Kali), the individual Self (soul)-realization (Hindu atman-brahman), or the Superself. Guru English is a mash-up that can mean almost anything, but it is seen as syntax grounded in ancient Eastern teachings.  

Many Eastern conceptions have been, perhaps, lost in translation due to this Guru English and preconceived Western notions. It is important to know that we not only tell myths with our English tongue, but our English words are constructed myths as well.

The Problem with our "Quest for Otherness"

            The “Oriental Monk” is a powerful symbol in Western culture that can be seen in a number of different mediums. Clearly there is something about the monk, and the Eastern ideologies that it represents, which draw us in. Iwamura suggests that this attachment to the Oriental Monk represents a “disillusionment with Western frameworks, and the hopes and fears attached with alternative spiritualties of the East” (10). This “disillusionment” with Western society and frameworks, such as capitalism or Christian values, is solved by turning to outside ideas or symbols and appropriating them to Western society. The Oriental Monk is only one example of this attempt to take things of “otherness” and turn them into “ideological caregivers” (Iwamura, 10). Is this arguably superficial means of integrating foreign ideas into our society a detrimental practice?

            Iwamura certainly suggests that our attraction to otherness has been detrimental to foreign cultures, as it serves as a justification for the West to proceed with “its (imperialist) work with renewed vigor and purpose around the globe” (iwamura, 100). But what does it mean for Western culture and society? Is it a good thing that we continue to look outward to appropriate different cultural ideas? It seems that our fascination with the “quest of otherness” serves as a façade by which we avoid looking inward for realistic solutions to society’s problems. If we truly are disillusioned with imperialism, capitalism, commercialization, and other Western tenets, is going to a yoga studio once a week really going to solve our problems? On the cover of the January 2003 Time, the magazine suggests that the “mind can heal your body”. Is this offering a real solution to our problems, or is it simply an attractive, almost exotic band-Aid for much deeper problems.

Belief in the Unknown

Jane Iwamura points out the power of belief in the Dalai Lama’s omnipresence, and other Western assumptions about the spiritual power of Eastern civilization and culture. In doing so she made me examine the support of such assumptions in my own life. Each morning before leaving my dorm for class, I am sure to make sure I have four things: my room keys, iPhone, Nike Fuelband and a bracelet made mahogany colored beads. I can adequately explain the significance of three items and their impact of my daily activities, but the beaded bracelet represents orientalization taking shape in my own life. My best friend’s brother is a strong advocate of the power that accompanies carrying good Karma, not putting too much value in material objects and being in tune with the natural settings around you. He gave me the bracelet. During his travels throughout Cambodia, this friend spent times with Monks at their Monastery and received this bracelet as a gift from the Monks at the end of his stay. My friend told me that the Monks blessed the bracelet, and it will bring the owner luck, piece of mind and the confidence to deal with the problems of everyday life. Constructing a method to achieve these ends came to me in the form an item that may or may not be the ideals of a culture I lack knowledge about. A group of others.

The process of othering based on cultural assumptions is an instinctual reaction for many Americans. Beyond the illustration of difference in popular culture, the supposed practices of Eastern culture allow Americans to have a definitive representation of the sacred. Even though the distinction of certain practices is an honor, it assumes the form of something that functions similar to a curse throughout Orientalization practices. What is seen as sacred is then internalized as unordinary. Mediation, yoga, Buddhist pratices and other markers of Eastern culture give Americans an escape from our society’s flaws, such as technology dependency and an addiction to instant gratification products. Our search for the next “new” thing stemming from an unfamiliar culture often leads to labeling based on stereotypes and racial/ethnic generalizations. More often than not, our actions lead by stereotyping mislead us to think traditions in existence for thousands of years are in fact, new. This disillusionment gives Americans the impression that we are more worldly, holistic individuals. In fact, our scope of cultural practices throughout the remainder of the Western world expanding into the East becomes narrower.